Mexican artist Andres Anza is the winner of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize 2024

On Andres Anza’s Instagram page, he shows how he creates his thorny ceramic sculptures. He first shapes the base from refractory clay with his hands, then pinches small pieces of material into individual ‘thorns’. Pressing them one by one onto the sharpened body, he forms his peculiar, anemone-like sculptures. Some are petite, like table objects; others are larger-than-life, towering over the Mexican artist who stands on crates to mould the top parts.

Anza’s amorphous sculptures embody varied personalities. There are those that loop over pedestals in mid-motion like little faceless aliens trying to escape their perch. Others embody a softness as thick bands knitted together in a tangled mass that is most often hung as wall art. When spray painted electric blue or neon yellow, they have a pop art appeal. Rendered in earth colours, they appear almost tribal.

In the autumn of 2023, Anza submitted one of his creations to the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize. On May 14 this year, he was announced as the winner among 30 finalists from all over the world. The cryptic title of this totemic version titled I Only Know What I Have Seen, 2023, reflected his longstanding ambition to “explore amorphous beings that seem to belong to a known ecosystem but result unrecognisable because they are extracted from abstract imagination,” as his website stated.

Anemone, cactus – or even durian? It is this combination of fascination and tactility, and ambiguity and familiarity about the creations that had the jury crowning him the winner. The 13-panel jury panel involving personnel from the arts, architecture, design and journalism industry included noted names like Pritzker Architecture Prize winning architect Wang Shu, designer Naoto Fukasawa and Olivier Gabet (director of the art department at the Louvre Museum, Paris). They praised how its anthropomorphic form was both ‘figurative and abstract’.

The foundation commented: “The jury observed that this work defies time and cultural context, drawing upon ancient, archaeological forms but also tracing a post-digital aesthetic that sees ceramics absorbing the most defining influences of our time.”

Initiated in 2016 by Loewe’s creative director Jonathan Anderson, with the first prize given out in 2017, this year’s competition received 3,900 entries from 124 countries and regions. “Craft is the essence of Loewe. As a house, we are able to craft in the purest sense of the word. That is where our modernity lies, and it will always be relevant,’ he said at the award’s inception.

The fashion craft workshop that was established in 1846 has always given importance to craft. Since joining Loewe in 2013, Anderson has celebrated artisans and their techniques not just in the fashion world, but also through art- and design-related initiatives, such as the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize.

Said Anatxu Zabalbeascoa, an art historian and journalist, as well as executive secretary of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize’s expert panel: “With the seventh edition of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, we continue to push the boundaries of craft and expand its horizons, with a showcase that includes works created from recycled materials, as various as glass, copper, wire and silicone, by artists around the globe. Our inspiration stems from a celebration of everyday monumentality, that paradoxically challenges the distinction between art and craft.”

She continued: “Craft, to us, embodies creativity, meaning, culture and technique, and we believe that traditions are best preserved when they are questioned and reimagined.”

The 30 finalists certainly raised discourse. This year, it was observed that many of the submissions made use of repurposed or found materials. For instance, rubber tyres and compressed wood – materials not traditionally associated with craft – elevated and transformed the everyday, highlighted the press release.

Anza received the €50,000 (US$ 54,269; S$73,290) cash prize at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris – Europe’s largest contemporary art centre. The shortlisted and winning works will be displayed there until Jun 9 this year, as well as documented in an exhibition catalogue. They can also be viewed in the Loewe Foundation’s digital exhibition platform called The Room.

Aside from Anza, there were also three special mentions: Miki Asai of Japan, Emmanuel Boos of France and Heechan Kim of the Republic of Korea. Here are some of the shortlisted works.

HEECHAN KIM, REPUBLIC OF KOREA

#16, ash wood and copper wire, 1967 x 813 x 813 mm, 2023

Heechan Kim’s vessel uses a traditional wood-bending technique from the boat-making industry. Thinly planed ash strips are soaked in water and manipulated with a hot iron, before being sanded and stitched together with thin copper wire. The jury noted its “masterful control of material” and the “artist’s desire to create a new form”.

Born in 1982, the artist studied metal arts and jewellery from Seoul National University before pursuing an MFA in woodworking and furniture design at the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York. He is currently a faculty member of Parsons School of Design and the City College of New York, teaching product design and sculpture.

MIKI ASAI, JAPAN

Still life, wood, paper, koshu, eggshell, seashell and mineral pigment, various dimensions, 2023

Miki Asai’s submission features three sculptural rings, each topped with crafted miniature vessels inspired by still-life paintings. The making process was a laborious one: The paper vessel’s surfaces are treated with tiny fragments of crushed eggshell, creating the illusion of cracked glazing. A mosaic of seashells adds shine and layers of mineral pigments create varied colouration. Finally, the pieces are coated with kashu-urushi (a kind of lacquer sourced from the cashew tree).

Born in 1988, the contemporary jeweller is now a tutor at the Nagoya Art University Design Department; her work has entered into the collection of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.

EMMANUEL BOOS, USA

Coffee table ‘Comme un Lego’, Porcelain, Tenmoku block and wood, 670 x 1760 x 380 mm, 2023

Emmanuel Boos’ coffee table is made of 98 hollow bricks held in place without the use of glue. The deep colour comes from the bricks being slip-cast from porcelain and fired with a Tenmoku-glaze.

Born in 1969, the artist discovered his love for pottery as a young teen. He later apprenticed with master ceramicist Jean Girel in Paris, and pursued the subject of the poetics of glaze with a PhD at the Royal College of Art in London. His research in the craft has taken him to South Korea and China, where he developed an interest in Chinese glazes and porcelain.

AYA OKI, USA

Bloom IX, glass, 380 x 350 x 380 mm, 2023

Aya Oki’s eye-catching submission combines two very different glass techniques. One is canework, which has strands of multi-coloured glass encased in a large bubble made from clear glass. Then, using a challenging glass-blowing technique, additional hot glass is attached to the outer surface of the first casing. As each globule expands with air, the resultant bubble cluster is formed.

Oki studied glass in the Aichi University of Education in Japan before moving to the States for further studies. She is fixated not just on the beauty of glass, but also on the process of glass making. The artist is now based in San Bernandino, California.

EUNMI CHUN, REPUBLIC OF KOREA

Wings of the Blue Bird, cow’s small intestines, thread and ink, 320 x 610 x 35 mm, 2019

At first glance, this necklace looks like it is made from bird feathers. Eunmi Chun actually constructed it entirely from the small intestines of cows. After being dried and dyed in shades of blue on wooden boards, they take on the texture of parchment, which Chun cut to resemble plumage and sewed together create the necklace.

The carnal work explores “notions of masquerading and projecting, and presenting an assumed identity to the world.” The artist has also experimented with other unusual organic ‘materials’ such as pigskin, seeds and gold-plated hair, which explores the question: What is the beauty of jewellery? Given the right context, she shows that these rejected or even repulsive elements can become poetic.