3,900 entries from craftsmen from 124 countries and regions. 30 finalists. The 2024 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize was quite intense, to say the least. A twelve-member jury of distinguished leaders with experience in design, architecture, journalism, criticism and museum curation selected the winner: Andrés Anza, a Mexican ceramic artist. On May 14 at Aubrey Plaza, the muse of the Spanish fashion house (if you haven’t seen the actor in… Decades of confusion campaign video, a surprise awaits you), presented the prize of 50,000 euros at the eminent Palais de Tokyo museum in Paris. “Thank you, Jar Jar, my best friend,” Plaza said, according to Fashionto Loewe imaginative director Jonathan Anderson, who handed her the microphone.
“This year’s edition of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize features a selection of works featuring organic and biomorphic forms that push materials to their physical limits,” reads the press release. Anza, who received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Monterrey in 2014, was honored with this prestigious honor for his work entitled I only know what I saw. The artist’s one-of-a-kind, life-size sculpture (pictured below) was created using thousands of miniature spikes made from individual ceramic protrusions. The statement continues: “The jury noted that this work defies time and cultural context, drawing on historic archaeological forms, but also following a post-digital aesthetic where ceramics absorb the most decisive influences of our time.”
The jury also awarded three special distinctions: to the Japanese artist Miki Asai for miniature dishes titled Still lifecoffee table by the French designer Emmanuel Boos called Like Lego, and to the Korean artist Heechan Kim for the sculptural vessel titled #16.
If you live in Paris or have a trip planned this summer, check out the exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, which will feature all 30 shortlisted works from May 15 to June 9.
