The Venice Biennale will be bestowing this year's Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Franz West and Sturtevant, two vastly different artists whose work nonetheless coexists in the interstitial gaps opened up in 20th-century art by postmodern theory. The selection was proposed by Bice Curiger, curator of the exhibition's 54th edition, "ILLUMInations," and approved by the Biennale's board, chaired by Paolo Baratta.

The choices mean that this year's awards — which are distinct from the Biennale's Golden Lion for best national participation, which is judged once the show is underway — will be presented on June 4 to two exceptionally established figures.

West, 64, is a Vienna-based Austrian artist who has become famous for sculptures that simultaneously bridge and confuse the distinctions between fine art and applied art, especially where it comes to furniture, clothing, and other objects that are geared to conform to the human body; in 1992 he represented Austria in its official Venice Biennale pavilion with a seven-part work titled "The Fragile at its Cloaca."

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Sturtevant, born Elaine Sturtevant in Lakewood, Ohio, in 1930, has investigated issues of authorship and originality in the post-Warholian world, making replicas (much like Sherrie Levine and Mike Bidlo) of work by Warhol, Duchamp, Beuys, and Frank Stella.

Previous winners of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement include:

– 2009: John Baldessari and Yoko Ono, proposed by curator Daniel Birnbaum

– 2007: Malick Sidibé, proposed by curator Robert Storr

– 2005: Barbara Kruger, proposed by curators Maria de Corral and Rosa Martinez

– 2003: Michelangelo Pistoletto and Carol Rama, proposed by curator Francesco Bonami