Loewe unveils the 30 finalists of the Craft Prize 2024

The Loewe Foundation has announced the 30 finalist artists of the Craft Prize in its seventh edition. The works will be exhibited from May 15 to June 9 at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and the winner of the competition will be announced on May 14, during the opening of the exhibition.

The finalists were selected by a committee of experts from among over 3900 submissions by artists and artisans from 124 countries. The thirty or so works to be showcased in the exhibition represent 16 countries and regions, forming a kaleidoscope of techniques and disciplines, including ceramics, woodwork, textiles, paper, basketry, glass, furniture, jewelry, and leather.

“Many of the pieces have been crafted using found or recycled materials that valorize and transform the everyday, such as rubber tires and compressed wood, elements not commonly associated with craftsmanship,” explained the organizers.

“Several of this year’s finalist works combine skill and technical prowess, intuition, and chance. The result is organic and biomorphic forms that challenge the physical limits of the materials used, presenting novel configurations and formats never seen before,” they added.

The Loewe Craft Prize, endowed with 50,000 euros, was founded in 2016, conceived by the creative director of the house, Jonathan Anderson, with the aim of celebrating excellence, artistic merit, and innovation in modern craftsmanship.

Since its launch, the exhibition of finalist works has been hosted at the Official College of Architects of Madrid in 2017, at the Design Museum in London (2018), in Isamu Noguchi’s “Heaven” stone inner garden at Sogetsu Kaikan, Tokyo, in 2019; as a digital display jointly organized with the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris (2021), at the Seoul Museum of Craft Art (SeMoCA) in Seoul (2022), and at Isamu Noguchi’s Studio at the Noguchi Museum in New York (2023).

In this seventh edition of the competition, a jury composed of 12 figures from the fields of design, architecture, journalism, criticism, and museum curating will be responsible for selecting the winning work.