Loewe Foundation Craft Prize at Ten Years

May 13. The Loewe Foundation Craft Prize opened its tenth-year exhibition in Singapore, five finalists selected from 3,100 entries across forty-seven countries. The winner announces May 20.

The prize launched in 2017 after three years of planning. Jonathan Anderson chairs the jury. Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough, the Proenza Schouler duo who now co-direct Loewe's women's creative alongside Anderson, sit on the panel. Hernandez: "For us, the idea of craft doesn't necessarily have to be crafty." The statement holds.

This year's finalists: a Japanese ceramicist working in stoneware reduction, a Dutch textile artist layering wool felt, a Korean metalworker hand-forging bronze vessels, a British woodturner building vessels from sycamore, and a Spanish glass sculptor pulling forms from recycled glass. No two share a material. No two share a geography.

The prize carries €50,000 and a commission for Loewe's Madrid foundation space. Past winners have included Genta Ishizuka (lacquer, 2017), Eriko Inazaki (bamboo, 2018), and Jennifer Lee (ceramics, 2019). All three went on to museum retrospectives within five years of winning. The prize doesn't just award. It positions.

The Singapore show runs through June 8 at the National Design Centre. Entry is free. The exhibition includes all thirty finalists from the prize's ten-year archive, a decade of what the foundation considers craft worth defending. Hernandez's line about craft not needing to be crafty reads clearer in person. The work on the walls doesn't try to look handmade. It just is.