Cecilia Vicuña Awarded 2025 Roswitha Haftmann Prize
87Oct. 11, 2025
Chilean activist, artist, and poet Cecilia Vicuña, known for her quipus—strands of knotted fibers that reference the ancient Andean communication system—has been named the winner of the 2025Roswitha Haftmann Prize. Established in 2001, the honor, which is accompanied by a no-strings-attached cash purse of 150,000 Swiss francs ($187,000), is named for late Swiss dealer Roswitha Haftmann and is administered by Kunsthaus Zürich. It is Europe’s largest arts prize and is typically given in recognition of an artist’s body of work over a lifetime. The award will be presented to Vicuña in a ceremony to take place November 21 at the Kunsthaus Zürich.
Born in Santiago, Chile, in 1948, Vicuña was exiled from her native country in the early 1970s following the violent military coup that ousted President Salvador Allende. Now dividing her time between New York and Santiago, she is known for works responding to the Indigenous culture of Chile and to the economic, political, environmental, and gender disparities that arise within societies. In addition to the aforementioned quipus, her practice includes “precarios” (objects made from discarded materials and exuding a sense of impermanence), film, collective performance, and installations; she has additionally published more than thirty volumes of art and poetry.
“I am truly delighted that we are honoring Cecilia Vicuña, an artist whose work possesses great visual power while addressing highly topical issues,” said Yilmaz Dziewior, director of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and a member of the Roswitha Haftmann Foundation’s board, in a statement. “Over the past decades, she has engaged intensively with the role of women in society, both in Latin America and more broadly. Equally urgently, she draws attention to the economic and ecological exploitation of our planet and repeatedly intervenes in current debates. There are very few artists who manage to do this with such poetic and enduring consistency as Cecilia Vicuña.”