Loewe announces craft prize shortlist

Loewe announces craft prize shortlist

Words Vilma Paasivaara

The annual LOEWE Craft Prize returns for its third edition with a shortlist of 30 finalists for 2018, which was announced today.

An international panel of experts chose the finalists over a two-day review in Madrid based on technical accomplishment, innovation and artistic vision. Work by all the shortlisted makers will be on display in the special exhibition at the Design Museum in May 2018.

The international cast of finalists has worked in a wide array of materials, ranging from traditional Japanese rice straw to horsehair and bio-resin. The objects themselves vary from the purely artistic, such as Matrix III Time, Space, Human – 1,2,3 by Korean artist Chang Yeonsoon, to the functional, including 100 Foot Drain / Annie’s Wood by Wycliffe Stutchbury, while others sit somewhere in between – witness Julian Watts’ Bench, which is more an invitation to tactile exploration than merely a seat.

 

Matrix III Time, Space, Human – 1,2,3 by Chang Yeonsoon

As one might expect, given the award’s criteria, the chosen makers have made use of an impressive range of both traditional and innovative techniques and processes. The interplay of the old and the new is prevalent in the selected works – as in Ann van Hoey’s ceramics in Ferrari red or Hae Cho Chung’s hemp fabric vessels, which pair vibrant colours with the ancient Korean lacquer technique ottchil.

 

 

The use of recovered or found materials was also noteworthy in this year’s shortlist. The work of Irish basket weaver Joe Hogan – as featured in our Irish craft feature – begins with a piece of fallen wood around which he weaves his pieces. French textile sculptor Simone Pheulpin uses recovered cotton strips as the raw material of her work in which she wraps the untreated fabric tightly over a long period of time – the roughness of the material allowing he to work only a few hours a day.

The LOEWE Craft Prize was established in 2016 by the LOEWE Foundation to celebrate artistic merit and excellence in modern craftsmanship. This year a jury of 10, including last year’s winner Ernst Gamperl, will select the winner who will be announced at the launch of the Design Museum exhibition.

 

Simone Pheulpin and her piece  Croissance XL

The selected finalists for the LOEWE Craft Prize 2018 are:

 

Paul Adie (United Kingdom)

Gunilla Maria Åkesson (Sweden)

ARKO (Japan)

Hae Cho Chung (Republic of Korea)

Steffen Dam (Denmark)

Sam Tho DUONG (Germany)

Sara Gackowska (Poland)

Ann van Hoey (Belgium)

Joe Hogan (Ireland)

Marie Janssen (Austria)

Joonyong Kim (Republic of Korea)

Christopher Kurtz (United States)

Takuro Kuwata (Japan)

Jennifer Lee (United Kingdom)

Deirdre McLoughlin (Ireland)

Richard McVetis (United Kingdom)

Chen Min (China)

Simone Pheulpin (France)

Irina Razumovskaya (Russian Federation)

Aneta Regel (United Kingdom)

Ryuhei Sako (Japan)

Rita Soto (Chile)

Laurenz Stockner (Italy)

Wycliffe Stutchbury (United Kingdom)

Mercedes Vicente (Spain)

Julian Watts (United States)

Takeshi Yasuda (United Kingdom)

Chang Yeonsoon (Republic of Korea)

Ashley YK Yeo (Singapore)

Shohei Yokoyama (Japan)

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