Since its inception in 2016, the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize has become one of the Spanish luxury brand’s flagship initiatives. Open to applicants from all over the world, it’s consistently brought together a host of independent designers and craftsmen. Think of it as an expanded appreciation of artisanal crafts—a veneration for things made by hand that permeates the house.
The Prize also offers a discerning curation of some of the most exciting craft talents from all over the world. This year’s edition saw over 3,900 submissions from 124 countries. This was whittled down by a panel of experts to yield just 30 finalists. The finalists’ works will go on show from 15 May in Paris at the Palais de Tokyo. And just before, on the 14th, a winner will be selected and announced, decided by a panel of 12 leading figures from the worlds of design, architecture, journalism, criticism and curation.
While the Craft Prize is fairly open-ended as far as a creative brief goes, a number of the finalists’ works this year incorporate repurposed or recycled materials; and an elevation and transformation of everyday objects. It’s probably no coincidence, as the conversations around sustainability and circularity mature, that artists and artisans are reflecting and echoing the sentiment.
And though categories like furniture or art objects tend to steal the show, jewellery is rather an unsung hero. The entire niche of physical adornments and decoration is suffused with age-old craft techniques. The intensity of craft is almost built-in when working on that wearable, human scale, and on objects that are intricately detailed.
Here, a look at the finalists from the 2024 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize who work with jewellery.
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‘Still Life’, 2023. Wood, paper, kashu, eggshell, seashell and mineral pigment by Miki Asai, Japan
This work by Japanese contemporary jeweller Miki Asai takes inspiration from still-life paintings and daily life. They might look like clay vessels on plinths, but these are in fact sculptural rings. The miniature vessels are shaped and formed from paper, with a variety of surface treatments to further the illusion. There’s crushed eggshells to mimic cracked glazing, seashells worked into the patterns as a mosaic to add iridescence, and layers of mineral pigments to create the colours.
The hollowed out ‘bands’ are carved from wood, and the creations are finally sanded to a smooth finish with kashu-urushi, a type of lacquer from cashew trees.
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‘Wings of the Blue Bird’, 2019. Cow’s small intestine, thread and ink by Eunmi Chun, Republic of Korea
Jewellery artist Eunmi Chun’s works reference animal imagery. This feathered necklace is crafted with a technique unique to the artist: the small intestines of cows are dried and dyed to transform them into a parchment-like material in shades of blue. It’s then cut into pieces to resemble the plumage and feathers of birds, and strung and sewn together to form the necklace. According to Chun’s artist statement, the illusory work broaches ideas like masquerades and projections, and how identities are assumed and presented.
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‘Pukana’, 2020. Silver, gold and synthetic gemstones by Karl Fritsch, New Zealand
German artist Karl Fritsch began his career in 1982 with an education in traditional gold smithing. But his contemporary creations are far from traditional. These ‘Pukuna’ rings completely toy with classical ideas of how gemstones are set in jewellery. The silver and gold rings are modelled in wax and cast in irregular shapes, and the synthetic gemstones—lab-created imitation sapphires and rubies among them—are inserted into holes and fixed in place. Fritsch’s stones protrude and jut, deeply unlike how precious gems are traditionally carefully and delicately presented.
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‘Juwel’, 2021 to 2022. Plastic and acrylic paint by Norman Weber, Germany
Norman Weber is another artist who started out with a classical education in gold and silver smithing. His mixed media works, however, take their inspiration from costume jewellery production in Bavaria and the boundaries between real and artificial. His kaleidoscopic ‘Juwel’ jewels are crafted from 3D-printed plastic, a playful twist on adornments made from non-precious materials. Each piece is painted with acrylic to create a faded colour reminiscent of objects weathered and bleached by the sun. The 3D-printed fabrication may be computer-aided, but the assembly, moulding and surface treatments—meant to evince faceted and uncut gems—are done entirely by hand.
