Seven young artists were selected by the Rolex artistic initiative
David Chipperfield, Mia Couto, Alfonso Cuaron, Philip Glass, Joan Jonas, Robert Lepage and Ohad Naharin select talented young artists for a year of creative collaboration.
Rolex has announced the names of the seven young artists who were chosen for a year of creative collaboration with a renowned teacher in the Rolex Art Initiative for Mentors and Disciples from 2016-2017.
The program, which was born in 2002, brings together several of the world's leading artists in seven disciplines with their disciples. The mentors of the eighth cycle of the Artistic Initiative are Sir David Chipperfield (architecture), Mia Couto (literature), Alfonso Cuaron (film), Philip Glass (music), Joan Jonas (visual arts), Robert Lepage Naharin (dance).
The Rolex Artistic Initiative for Mentors and Disciples is by invitation, after a pre-selection of candidates proposed by anonymous experts in each discipline. For the eighth edition of the Rolex Art Initiative, international nominating committees, or talent scouts, who select potential disciples from their network around the world, invited 159 artists from 53 countries to apply for mentoring; From that group, three or four field artists were chosen as finalists. It is at this stage, when the mentor of each discipline chooses and knows his particular disciple.
Each mentor-disciple couple is free to work together the way they prefer for a minimum of six weeks, although they maintain frequent contact throughout the year. The fruits of this collaboration come to life ended the mentoring period at the Rolex Arts Weekend; There the participants share the culminating moments of their interaction.
Each of the disciples is awarded a scholarship of 25,000 Swiss francs, plus 25,000 more to finance a new work that will be released after the year of mentoring. But no less profitable is the time that each young artist spent with his teacher and not only enriches his artistic expression, but also the lives of both.
As for Visual Arts, the artist selected is Thao-Nguyen Phan (Vietnam) with her mentor Joan Jonas (United States). Combining painting, video, acting and installation, Thao-Nguyen Phan, 28, has crossed the frontiers of contemporary art in Vietnam. After completing his master's degree in Art at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, he works as a multimedia artist and has also co-founded the group Art Labor, which develops artistic projects to favor the local community.
