In recognition of Adriana Varejão’s contributions towards the promotion of Brazilian arts and culture on national and international levels, the artist has been selected by the President of Brazil as the recipient of the 2011 Cultural Merit Order award. The award will be delivered by President Dilma Roussef at a ceremony that will take place on 9 Novemeber, 2011, at the Santa Izabel Theater in Recife, in the state of Pernambuco.

Born in 1964 in Rio de Janeiro, where she lives and works, Adriana Varejão is one of Brazil’s leading contemporary artists. Her work is included in the collections of the Tate Modern, London; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Hara Museum in Tokyo, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, among others. In 2008, the Centro de Arte Contemporaneo Inhotim installed a permanent pavilion devoted to the artist’s work. Varejão has exhibited extensively internationally – including at the Biennale of Sydney, the Venice Biennale, and the Sao Paulo Biennial – and has had solo exhibitions at the Centro Cultural Banoo do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro; the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris; Centro Cultural Belém, Lisbon; and the Hara Museum, Tokyo. In 2012, Adriana Varejão will have solo exhibitions at the Museo de Arte Moderna (MAM) in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.