The Loewe Foundation hosted a night of intricate craft at The Noguchi Museum in Queens, Recent York on Tuesday night, culminating in Japanese ceramicist Eriko Inazaki winning the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize for 2023.

“The explanation why I selected this location is I’ve been at Loewe for 10 years now and after I first did a show for Loewe, I did it at Unesco in Paris. That garden there is finished by Noguchi, so after we were taking a look at venues, I assumed there was something that actually was book-ended in some way, it made sense to have it here,” creative director Jonathan Anderson said during a mid-day tour of the museum and 30 finalists’ craft works ahead of the evening’s event.

“In our stores, we have now a number of the unique lamps in the gathering; it’s Noguchi, he’s one among my favorite sculptors. I believe the space – after I come to Recent York, it’s such a peaceful a part of Recent York. There’s something about it that’s very calming. I believe as well, its utility towards craft – as much as you see the sculptures, there’s something concerning the make and the hand of the pieces,” Anderson continued.

Established in 2016 by Anderson, the craft prize is each a tribute to Loewe’s roots as a collective craft workshop in 1846, in addition to “to rejoice excellence and artistic merit in modern craftsmanship, and to acknowledge the importance of craft in today’s culture,” Sheila Loewe, Loewe Foundation president, said in the course of the awards presentation.

“While the prize is devoted to keeping traditions alive, it’s also about innovation and creativity. The artists that we have now here today are a tremendous representation of this. The shortlisted works on display this evening, showcase our skillful manipulation and mastery of materials,” she said.

The sixth edition of the craft prize received 2,700 entries from 117 different countries and regions. An authority, international jury panel (noted by Loewe as leading figures of design, architecture, criticism, museum curatorship and architecture) then chosen 30 shortlisted artists’ works from 16 countries. Each of the works – which span a variety of mediums including  textiles, glass, metal, woodwork, jewelry, lacquer and paper – will probably be on display inside Isamu Noguchi’s Studio at The Noguchi Museum from Wednesday until June 18. The 2023 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize was noted to be the primary time a public exhibition will happen throughout the Long Island City space.

“If it were me, I might have it open for six months,” Anderson said of the general public exhibit. “I like this concept that folks are engaging with it, reacting to it, or seeing what they think, or what they like and didn’t like. As an exhibition, it’s really beautiful, especially within the context of the space – this concept of makers throughout the space of somebody who uses an atelier. It gives an awareness to everyone who’s participating. There’s a number of individuals who come through and it’d introduce different people to different artists, and that is a very powerful thing of the method.”

In the course of the awards ceremony, Anderson brought forth special guest Fran Leibowitz to announce Inazaki because the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize 2023 winner for her hand-crafted ceramic work “Metanoia, 2019.”

“The jury — I’m not on the jury — the jury commented on her exceptional tackle ornamentation in ceramics similar to that has never been seen before. The work’s virtuosity creates a spell-binding presence that commands the exhibition space and inspires wonder, congratulations,” Leibowitz said.

Inazaki, through a translator, said: “I’m not clear about naming my works whether it’s art, craft or something else. But I do know piece of labor goes beyond the boundaries of categories. This was a chance for me to appreciate that my work would resonate with so many individuals.”

“It was the detail and meticulous nature,” Abraham Thomas, curator of recent architecture, design and ornamental arts on the Metropolitan Museum of Art and two-time Loewe Foundation Craft Prize jury member, told WWD of the piece.

“You possibly can’t even imagine it’s ceramic. How you’ll fire porcelain with such thin filaments? And it’s organic as well. If you take a look at the main points, there’s intricate geometries. It was really fastidiously thought through and I loved the contrast of the vase. I really like how the entire thing felt like a sea anemone or something quite fantastical – it excites that feeling of fascination. So it’s the mix of skill, process, materiality, ingenuity but inside all that, you possibly can see she’s drawn upon the history of ceramics as well in the concept of making these spectacular pieces, or show-stoppers,” Thomas said. “Being at The Met as a curator, the contemporary, that’s what I really like, but we have now that chance to showcase the work of recent and contemporary makers within the context of historical collections. I really like how the Loewe prize also provokes those dialogues of the past.”

“It’s a tough process because everyone has their favorites and you might have to in some way come to a conclusion, but I enjoy it because I feel you see things in several works that you just don’t see but another person does. I believe that is what I find remarkable, because I’ve had moments today where I even have been more wooed to something by listening to someone talk about it with compassion,” Anderson said of the deliberation process. “We’ve got a tremendous jury of people that come from all different walks of life, who’ve worked in among the biggest institutions on the earth, and who really consider within the prize.”

Honorable mentions got to Dominique Zinkpè for his large-scale wood and acrylic work, “The Watchers, 2022,” and to Moe Watanabe for her walnut bark work, “Transfer Surface, 2022” by jurors Magdalene Odundo, ceramicist, and Naotto Fukasawa, designer and director of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo. 

“I feel it’s an enormous commitment of Loewe for the foreseeable future to proceed this prize, because I believe it’s very essential and as years go on, individuals are starting to appreciate the influence it has throughout the world of the humanities,” Anderson said. 

“In the long term, we’ll open a foundation in Barcelona. It’s under a number of constraints for the time being, but we’re coping with it. Someday we’ll open a foundation which will probably be over 4 floors, it would be free to the general public and it would mix craft, contemporary art, video and fashion. It should be this holistic space that can have two or three shows a 12 months and that’s where all the things is housed. Numerous the works we do buy they usually go into the stores globally, but at one point they will probably be pulled together into this fantasy project I even have in my head that in the future will probably be realized,” Anderson said.