LOEWE FOUNDATION PRESENTS THE 2021 CRAFT PRIZE WINNER AND THE ROOM

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The LOEWE FOUNDATION is pleased to announce the winner and special mentions of the 2021 LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize, as well as new digital initiative, The Room.

The LOEWE FOUNDATION is pleased to announce the opening of the fourth LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize exhibition and announcement of the winner and special mentions. It is also pleased to announce LOEWE FOUNDATION The Room, a new digital platform which showcases the work of all 115 finalists of the Prize since it launched in 2016.

Fanglu Lin (b. 1989, China) was chosen as the winning entry with her work, SHE (2016). The work astonished the jury with ‘its monumental scale and breathtaking skill’. Made with cloth, the work is influenced by the thousand-year old sewing methods of women of Bai Minority in Yunnan province, China.

The Jury also agreed upon two special mentions:

David Corvalán (b.1979, Chile), for the work Desértico II (2019). This beautiful copper wire and resin work possesses the allure of an artefact from a distant era, loaded with ancestral and political messaging. Part of a series of geomorphological sculptures inspired by Corvalán’s home in the Atacama Desert, it brings attention to the way commercial greed motivates industrial mining. Fashioned from copper wire and resin, the petrified wood-like surface carries an ephemeral brightness; a representation of the fragility of the beauty that surrounds us while evidencing how human behaviour imperils natural wonder.

Takayuki Sakiyama (b.1958, Japan) for the work Chōtō: Listening to the Waves (2019). A swirling love letter to the fluctuating power of the sea, this enchanting sculptural vessel is a triumph of material mastery and technique. Condensing his own observations of the ocean’s ebbs and flows into this orbicular form, Sakiyama uses a unique sand glaze that both invokes and inverts the seabed.

Lin, Corvalán and Sakiyama were chosen from 30 finalists by a distinguished jury composed of leading figures from the worlds of design, architecture, journalism, criticism and museum curatorship, including Olivier Gabet, Anatxu Zabalbeascoa, Genta Ishizuka, Naoto Fukasawa and Patricia Urquiola. The finalists were chosen by a panel of experts in 2020 from over 2,500 submissions by artists representing more than 100 countries – the most international edition since the prize conceived by Jonathan Anderson in 2016.

Due to the restrictions in place in France, this year the finalist’s works are being exhibited digitally at www.loewecraftprize.com, after the exhibition was initially planned to be on show at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Since the finalists were selected in January 2020, the LOEWE FOUNDATION has highlighted their work on Instagram with a series of studio tours, part of the LOEWE EN CASA series.

The digital technology used in the exhibition enables viewers to walk around the Great Hall of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, which has been modelled for the first time in 3D. The works, which are also modelled in 3D, can be experienced through high definition 360-degree ‘close-up’ filming and augmented reality, allowing visitors to bring each piece into their home through a smartphone.

The Room is a new digital platform which is the first public database of works of contemporary craft and is part of LOEWE’s longstanding commitment to supporting craft. Jonathan Anderson says: ‘Craft is the essence of LOEWE. As

a house, we are about craft in the purest sense of the word. That is where our modernity lies, and it will always be relevant.’ The Room will enable the artists to share their work with a global audience, as well as give viewers the opportunity to discover, research and collect art by the world’s most innovative craftspeople working today. Artists are able to upload their own content and imagery to the platform, as well as provide contact details for themselves or their galleries, so that viewers can make enquiries.

 

Notes to Editors

For further press information and images, please contact: carrie@reesandco.com

The LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2021 is available to view at www.loewecraftprize.com until 30 September 2021.

The Room is now live at https://theroom.loewe.com.

About the Winner:

Fanglu Lin, China

1989: Based in Beijing, China. A young designer motivated by the need to salvage fading traditions and folkways of China’s ethnic minorities, Fanglu Lin was educated in Germany and Japan. Her work has been exhibited in China and, in 2016, she won both Young Designer of the Year and Innovative Brand of the Year at Beijing’s China Architecture Decoration Association.

About the special mentions:

David Corvalán, Chile

1979: Based in Calama, Chile. Known for his slow yet thorough creative process, Corvalán studied in Chile and Spain, before returning to the Atacama Desert where he now works and lives. His use of discarded manufacturing materials has always been intended to high-light consumerist excess. In 2018, he was awarded Calama’s prestigious Gold Medal for Citizen Merit in arts and culture.

Takayuki Sakiyama, Japan

(Born 1958 in Shizuoka, Japan.) A graduate of Osaka’s University of Arts, in 1987 Takayuki Sakiyama established the Hidaka-gama kiln and has regularly exhibited at museums, galleries, and art fairs around the world. Drawing inspiration from the sea surrounding the Izu Peninsula where he resides, his pieces can be found in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Le Musée National de Céramique de Sèvres.

In addition to LOEWE creative director Jonathan Anderson, the jury for the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2021 included:

Anatxu Zabalbeascoa (Chair), architecture and design correspondent for El País. Benedetta Tagliabue, architect and RIBA Stirling Prize winner.

Deyan Sudjic, essayist and Director Emeritus of the Design Museum, London. Enrique Loewe, LOEWE FOUNDATION Honorary President.

Genta Ishizuka, Winner of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2019. Hongnam Kim, President of the National Trust of Korea.

Naoto Fukasawa, designer and Director of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Tokyo. Olivier Gabet, Director of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.

Patricia Urquiola, architect and industrial designer. Wang Shu, architect and Pritzker Prize winner.

Wolfgang Lösche, Head of Exhibitions and Fairs at the Chamber of Skilled Trades, Munich.

About LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize

The LOEWE FOUNDATION launched the international annual LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize in 2016 to showcase and celebrate newness, excellence and artistic merit in modern craftsmanship. The LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2021 recognises the shortlisted artists as having made fundamentally important contributions to the development of contemporary craft and spans ceramics, jewellery, textiles, woodwork, glass, metalwork, furniture, papercraft and lacquer. The Prize functions as a multigenerational snapshot of the utmost excellence in craft today.

The award, which was conceived by LOEWE creative director Jonathan Anderson, aims to acknowledge the importance of craft in today’s culture and recognise working artisans whose talent, vision and will to innovate set a standard for the future.

The incentive for the prize was inspired by LOEWE’s beginnings as a collective craft workshop in 1846, reflecting fashion’s vital link to culture and the importance of advanced, specialised knowledge to the field. Art, craft and design remain fundamental cornerstones to the house’s present chapter.

Any professional artisan aged over 18 can apply for the award, with the sole requirement that the submitted work combine an innovative application of its craft with an original artistic concept.

The period for presenting submissions to the fifth edition of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize will be 23 June – 25 October 2021 and the exhibition and awards ceremony will take place in Seoul, Republic of Korea in 2022.

The LOEWE FOUNDATION

The LOEWE FOUNDATION was established as a private cultural foundation in 1988 by Enrique Loewe, a fourth-generation member of LOEWE’s founding family. Today, under the direction of his daughter Sheila Loewe, the Foundation continues to promote creativity, organise educational programs and protect cultural heritage in the fields of poetry, dance, photography, design and craft. The Foundation was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts by the Spanish government in 2002.

More information:

web | www.loewecraftprize.com or www.loewe.com blog | www.blogfundacionloewe.es

Instagram | @loewefoundation

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris

Situated within the Louvre Palace of Paris, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs was created in 1882 in order to promote the applied arts and develop links between industry and culture, design and production. The museum preserves around 800,000 artworks from the French national collections including glass, ceramic, gold and silverware, jewellery, design, fashion and graphic design. The museum pursues the objectives it was given at the outset: ‘to keep alive in France the culture of the arts which seek to make useful things beautiful’ and to maintain close links with industry, forging numerous partnerships with firms operating in various fields. The Musée des Arts Décoratifs presents several exhibitions dedicated to fashion and design each year.

LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2021 digital exhibition at www.loewecraftprize.com

Fanglu Lin, China
‘SHE’, 2016
cloth and wood

 

 

David Corvalán, Chile
‘Desértico II’, 2019
copper wire and epoxy resin

Takayuki Sakiyama, Japan
‘Chōtō: Listening to the Waves’, 2019 stoneware

The Room, first public database of works of contemporary craft at https://theroom.loewe.com

 

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