Applications are open for the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2022

Applications are open for the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2022

The LOEWE FOUNDATION seeks to recognise uniquely talented artisans whose artistic vision and will to innovate will set a new standard for the future of craft.

The Prize for the winning entry is 50,000 euros. The winning work selected by the Jury, as well as the works of the finalists shortlisted selected by the Experts Panel will be included in an exhibition and the accompanying catalogue ‘LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2022’, on view in Seoul in spring 2022.

Applications deadline: October 25, 2021
Apply here: loewecraftprize.com

Aim

The aim of this Prize is to disseminate and raise awareness of the work of talented craftspeople, sharing their greatest achievements. The LOEWE FOUNDATION aims to recognise outstanding works that show artistic vision and innovation, and which reflect the personal language and distinct hand of their maker. The LOEWE FOUNDATION aims to support artistic craft and acknowledge leading artisans from around the world at the forefront of their fields. The winning work should reinterpret tradition to make it relevant now and demonstrate the continuing valuable contribution to the culture of our time.

Prize

The Prize for the winning piece of work is fifty thousand euros (50,000 euros). The winning entry can be made up of either one single piece of work or one series of works.

The Prize for the works awarded with a Special Mention is five thousand euros (5,000 euros), regardless of the number of Special Mentions granted.

Prizes will be subject to the withholding of the corresponding Spanish personal income tax (Impuesto sobre la Renta de las Personas Físicas, IRPF) in accordance with current legislation in Spain.

The works created by the Winner and Finalists will be included in the exhibition ‘LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2022’ (herein after ‘the Exhibition’) and its accompanying catalogue, on view in Seoul in the spring of 2022 or any other location that LOEWE FOUNDATION may deem appropriate.

Conditions of Entry

All participants must be professional artisans of 18 years or older at the time of the submission of entries. Entries may be made by an individual or collective (as a ‘group submission’). Businesses and mercantile companies of any kind are excluded. All nationalities are welcome.

Each participant can present either one single piece of work or one series of works, understood as a number of objects considered as a single artistic creation (henceforth, ‘the Work’). This should fall within an area of the applied arts and, as a guide, within the following categories: ceramics, bookbinding, enamelwork, jewellery, lacquer, metal, furniture, leather, textiles, glass, wood, paper, etc.
Materials and products outside the categories listed are not excluded; they may be accepted by the Experts Panel if they comply with the aim and requirements of the competition. Dangerous, prohibited or alive materials are excluded.

All Works must:
— Be owned by the participant, at all times, since its creation until the end of the License period, — Be an original one-off piece, handmade or partly handmade by the participant, — Have been recently created (in the last five years),
— Have won no prizes previously,
— Be innovative, in the sense that it updates tradition,
— Demonstrate artistic intent,
— Be able to travel and be installed by LOEWE and/or the LOEWE FOUNDATION. These conditions are essential for the Works to be admitted as Finalists.

Each maker may participate with only one Work or one series as an individual or as a group in each call. Works selected as finalists in previous calls of this competition will not be admitted.
— If a participant submits the Work to another competition and wins a prize, or
— if the Work ceases to be in the possession of the participant or
— if, for any reason whatsoever, ownership of the Work is transferred to a third party, or — if the Work is damaged once it has been submitted, the participant must urgently notify the LOEWE FOUNDATION of such occurrence by email so that the work may be removed from the competition.

Once a Work has been submitted to the competition, it may not be altered in any sense.

In case of detection of any irregularity in the conditions of entry, the participant may be disqualified and his/her application may not be considered.

Submission of Entries

Entries must be submitted through the loewecraftprize.com webpage from 20 July 2021 to 25 October 2021 inclusive, on which date the period for entry will be deemed closed at 23.59 CET.
Each participant must include the following information. It is compulsory to submit all this information only in English:
— The name of the maker or group, the country of entry, date and place of birth, contact telephone number, email and postal address.
— Short biographical note of the maker.
— A portfolio of the maker showing up to 5 highlighted works of the maker´s career. — The name of the Work, its measurements (in mm, cm or m), its material, its weight (in g or Kg), the category in which it is entered, and the approximate value of the Work (in Euro) for insurance purposes.
— Copy of passport or official ID document.
— Brief conceptual and technical statement about the Work presented (not more than 200 words). — Photographs of the Work presented: a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 5 photographs will be needed, taken from different perspectives and only one of them must make reference to the scale by having a person next to the Work presented. Each photo should be taken with a white neutral background and sent in jpg or png format, minimum size 800 x 600 px and maximum weight 2 Mb. — Optionally, a video of the Work showing the different perspectives, with a maximum duration of 1 minute.

All participants must take care of the accuracy of the information provided for it will be used in the Exhibition and the catalogue.
All entries presented through the webpage will be confidential. Only LOEWE, the LOEWE FOUNDATION, the Experts Panel and the Jury will have access to them. Only the winning and the finalist Works will be made public.

Experts Panel

An Experts Panel will shortlist up to 30 Works from among all the entries submitted. These finalists (hereafter called the ‘Finalists’) will be then submitted to the Jury for their final decision.

In this call, the Experts Panel will be composed of:
— Paula Aza, LOEWE Director of Architecture and Visual Merchandising.
— Peter Bauhuis, metal artist and finalist of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2021. — Antonia Boström, Director of Collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. — Hyeyoung Cho, Secretary General at the Korea Craft and Design Foundation.
— Sara Flynn, ceramicist and finalist of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2017. — Jiyong Lee, glass artist and finalist of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2021. — Juha Marttila, LOEWE Leather Goods Design Director.
— Kavita Parmar, textile designer.
— Zizipho Poswa, ceramicist.
— Ramón Puig Cuyàs, jewellery artist.
— Anatxu Zabalbeascoa (Executive Secretary), architecture and design correspondent for El País.

Jury

The Jury for this call will be made up of:
— Jonathan Anderson, LOEWE Creative Director.
— Naoto Fukasawa, designer and Director of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Tokyo. — Olivier Gabet, Director of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.
— Hongnam Kim, President of the National Trust of Korea.
— Fanglu Lin, winner of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize fourth edition.
— Enrique Loewe, LOEWE FOUNDATION Honorary President.
— Magdalene Odundo, ceramicist.
— Wang Shu, architect and Pritzker Prize winner.
— Deyan Sudjic, essayist and Director Emeritus of the Design Museum, London.
— Benedetta Tagliabue, architect and RIBA Stirling Prize winner.
— Abraham Thomas, Curator of Modern Architecture, Design and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
— Patricia Urquiola, architect and industrial designer.
— Anatxu Zabalbeascoa (Chairwoman), architecture and design correspondent for El País.

LOEWE FOUNDATION

The LOEWE FOUNDATION was established as a private cultural Foundation in 1988 by Enrique Loewe Lynch, a fourth-generation member of LOEWE’s founding family. Today, under the direction of his daughter Sheila Loewe, the Foundation continues to promote creativity, support educational programmes and safeguard heritage in the fields of poetry, dance, photography, art and craft. The Foundation was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts, the highest honour granted by the Spanish Government, in 2002.

One of the primary purposes for which the LOEWE FOUNDATION was established was to support design and craftsmanship.

Featured image: Fanglu Lin, SHE, Winner 2021