Fabric Of Time
The Loewe Foundation on Tuesday revealed the winner of its 2021 edition and launched a new digital initiative, The Room, featuring the work of all 115 finalists of the prize conceived by Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson in 2016.
Chinese designer Fanglu Lin scored the winning entry with her work “She,” which is based on the traditional textile skills of the Bai minority group based in the province of Yunnan in China.
The cloud-like wall installation, built over three months of painstaking knotting, stitching, folding and pleating of white cloth into intricate patterns, impressed the jury with “its monumental scale and breathtaking skill,” Loewe said in a statement.
The jury singled out for special mention two further artists: Chile’s David Corvalán for his sculpture made of copper wire and resin, based on his home in the Atacama Desert, and Japan’s Takayuki Sakiyama for his swirling stoneware sculpture inspired by the power of the sea.
They were chosen from 30 finalists by a jury including Anderson; Olivier Gabet, director of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris; architects Benedetta Tagliabue and Wang Shu; designers Naoto Fukasawa and Patricia Urquiola, and lacquerware artist Genta Ishizuka, winner of the 2019 edition of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize.
Due to restrictions in France designed to limit the spread of the coronavirus, the exhibition originally planned at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs was replaced by a digital show at loewecraftprize.com. It enables visitors to tour the Great Hall of the museum, which has been modeled for the first time in 3D.
The works, which are also rendered in 3D, can be viewed through high-definition 360-degree filming and augmented reality, allowing visitors to bring each piece into their home through a smartphone. Meanwhile, The Room is a digital platform designed as a public database of works of contemporary craft.
Artists are able to upload their own content and imagery to the platform, as well as provide contact details for themselves or their galleries, so that viewers can make inquiries.
“Craft is the essence of Loewe.
As a house, we are about craft in the purest sense of the word. That is where our modernity lies, and it will always be relevant,” Anderson said. — J.D.