The International "Lorenzo il Magnifico" Lifetime Achievement Award will be awarded to American director and artist Tim Burton, on the occasion of the XV Florence Biennale - International Exhibition of Contemporary Art and Design, which will be held from 18 to 26 October 2025 at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence, with the theme "The Sublime Essence of Light and Darkness. Concepts of Dualism and Unity in Contemporary Art and Design".

The theme of the 15th edition of the Florence Biennale is dedicated to the primordial, eternal union between light and darkness, which has always been at the center of artistic, scientific, philosophical and literary research. The object of study and reflection by many of the most brilliant minds in the history of humanity, from Heraclitus, Pythagoras and Aristotle to Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo Galilei, up to Newton, Maxwell and Einstein, light has always represented not only a physical phenomenon, but also a concept that is at the basis of life itself and that connects the macrocosm and the microcosm, pushing us to meditate on the connections between what happens in our limited and fragile terrestrial world and what is inherent in the immensity of the universe.

If the architectural works of ancient civilizations, such as Stonehenge, the Mayan temples and the pyramids of Giza, demonstrate the attention and devotion of our ancestors towards sunlight, the latter (intended as the most evident and tangible manifestation of light phenomena on our planet) has continued to be the focus of artists, architects, scientists and men of letters in all subsequent civilizations and in all known eras.