Acclaimed artists El Anatsui, Bernardine Evaristo, Jia Zhang-Ke, Anne Lacaton and Dianne Reeves have chosen younger artists of outstanding accomplishment from across the world as their protégés in the new cycle of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. 

Geneva, 10 September, 2022 – Five of the world’s most renowned artists – El Anatsui (Visual Arts), Bernardine Evaristo (Literature), Jia Zhang-Ke (Film), Anne Lacaton (Architecture) and Dianne Reeves (Music) – will each mentor an outstanding emerging artist, as participants in the 2023–2024 cycle of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. The mentors and their protégés, who come from across the globe, will spend the next two years in creative collaboration.

The Rolex mentoring programme was established in 2002 to aid in the transmission of artistic knowledge and craft from one generation to the next. It exemplifies Rolex’s pursuit of excellence, symbolized by the word ‘Perpetual’.

The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative has paired 63 of the world’s greatest artists with 63 highly talented younger professionals from around the globe. Rolex announced the new mentors and their protégés today at a ceremony at New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), as part of a two-day Rolex Arts Weekend celebrating the culmination of the current cycle of the programme.

Rolex announced that Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui has selected South African visual artist Bronwyn Katz as his protégée; British author Bernardine Evaristo selected Ghanaian writer Ayesha Harruna Attah; Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-Ke selected Filipino filmmaker Rafael Manuel; French architect Anne Lacaton selected Lebanese- Armenian architect Arine Aprahamian; and American jazz singer Dianne Reeves selected South Korean singer and composer Song Yi Jeon.

Rebecca Irvin, head of the mentoring programme, said, “Rolex is deeply grateful to the mentors for their commitment to advancing the artistry of the next generation through the irreplaceable tradition of individual exchange and inspiration. We also extend our congratulations to the protégés, who now join the global and multigenerational artistic community that has grown over the past two decades. It will be exciting to see how the creative collaborations in this new cycle will once again take place across barriers of geography and culture, as well as age, and to look forward to celebrating all the mentors and protégés from the past 20 years next year at an exceptional Rolex Arts gathering.” 

THE 2023−2024 MENTORS
The mentors in the 2023−2024 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative are:

Architecture
Anne Lacaton

Named a Laureate of the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize along with her partner Jean-Philippe Vassal, Anne Lacaton is recognized internationally for designs that maximize the discipline’s human and environmental potential and make sustainable use of what already exists. Established in Paris in 1987, Lacaton & Vassal has since designed dozens of private and social housing projects, cultural and academic institutions, as well as public spaces, mostly throughout Europe. Lacaton has served as an Associate Professor of Architecture and Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich and has been a visiting professor at other leading universities.

Film
Jia Zhang-Ke

Considered one of the most daring Chinese filmmakers working today, Jia Zhang-Ke has become a leading figure in the post-1990 “Sixth Generation” of Chinese directors. His early films, known as the Shanxi trilogy, including his first feature Xiao Wu (Pickpocket, 1997), caught moments of transition in Chinese society. In 2006, Jia’s critically acclaimed Still Life won the Golden Lion at the 2006 Venice Film Festival and earned him the title of Best Director at the Asian Film Awards. His three latest award-winning feature films are A Touch of Sin (2013), Mountains May Depart (2015) and Ash is Purest White (2018). In 2017, Jia founded the Pingyao International Film Festival.

Literature
Bernardine Evaristo

Bernardine Evaristo was the first black woman and the first black British person to win the prestigious 2019 Booker Prize for her novel, Girl, Woman, Other. She is the author of 10 books that explore the African diaspora and numerous other works of short fiction, poetry, drama, essays and journalism. The Emperor’s Babe (2001) was named one of “100 Best Books of the Decade” by The Times of London in 2010. Most recently, she published Manifesto: On Never Giving Up (2021), her first book of non-fiction. Evaristo is President of the Royal Society of Literature, the first writer of colour to hold the position in 200 years.

Music
Dianne Reeves

Recognized for her breathtaking virtuosity, improvisational prowess and unique jazz and R&B stylings, five-time Grammy winner Dianne Reeves is considered the pre-eminent jazz vocalist in the world. Her most recent album, Beautiful Life, received the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance and she won the same award previously for three consecutive recordings. She was the first Creative Chair for Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and has performed at the White House on multiple occasions. In 2018, the National Endowment for the Arts designated Reeves a Jazz Master − the highest honour the US bestows on jazz artists.

Visual Arts
El Anatsui

Ghanaian artist El Anatsui has helped redefine the global art world with Africa’s presence, raising its profile through his monumental sculptures and installations that move across painting, textiles, sculpture and design to encompass the use of water, wind, wood, clay, stone, metal, printing plates, aluminium bottle tops and other found materials. He is Emeritus Professor in Sculpture of the University of Nigeria, an Honorary Royal Academician of the Royal Society of Arts and elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among his awards are the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale.

THE 2023−2024 PROTÉGÉS
The protégés in the 2023−2024 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative are:

Architecture
Arine Aprahamian

Lebanese-Armenian architect, designer and researcher Arine Aprahamian champions an innovative, affordable and sustainable vision of the future through architecture. She founded architecture and design studio MÜLLER APRAHAMIAN with partner Adrian Müller in 2018. With activities in Beirut, London and Yerevan, Armenia, the studio has since worked on cuttingedge buildings and proposals, as well as on forward-thinking projects with notable designers, artists and institutions. They recently launched Terraforma, an in-house R&D project working with local industry to explore the traditional, ancient building material of clay and produce innovative, domestic alternatives for architectural materials.

Film
Rafael Manuel

Filipino filmmaker Rafael Manuel, currently based between Amsterdam, London and Manila, has grounded his creations in the study of philosophy and visual communications. Among his numerous awards, Manuel won the Silver Bear Jury Prize at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival for his short film Filipiñana. In 2021, he received the Prince Claus Seed Award for Development and Culture, the Script and Development Award from the Hubert Bals Fund and the Ani ng Dangal Award from the Philippine National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Manuel is currently working on his first two feature films: Filipiñana (based on his short) and Patrimonio. He is a co-founder of the international artist collective and film production company Idle Eye Productions.

Literature
Ayesha Harruna Attah

Part of a new generation of African writers who are making their name in literary circles, Senegal-based Ghanaian author Ayesha Harruna Attah has published five novels: Harmattan Rain (2009), Saturday’s Shadows (2015), The Hundred Wells of Salaga (2018), The Deep Blue Between (2020) and Zainab Takes New York (2022). In all of these works, she strives to create historical fiction that challenges existing preconceptions of African mores through her vibrant storytelling. Among her many accolades, Attah was a finalist in the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, long-listed for the Prix Les Afriques and shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.

Visual Arts
Bronwyn Katz

Singled out for her many accomplishments, South African visual artist Bronwyn Katz has established herself internationally. The Cape Town-based artist has incorporated sculpture, installation, video and performance in her acclaimed, nuanced body of work that uses found natural materials such as iron ore, or salvaged manufactured objects including foam mattresses and bed springs. A solo exhibition of her work at London’s White Cube gallery in 2021 was followed by an exhibition at the International Art Exhibition of the 2022 Venice Biennale. Katz won Africa’s prestigious First National Bank Art Prize in 2019. She is a founding member of iQhiya, a network of 11 black women artists.

ABOUT THE ROLEX MENTOR AND PROTÉGÉ ARTS INITIATIVE

For more than half a century Rolex has supported some of the world’s most talented artists and leading cultural institutions to help perpetuate artistic heritage and create a link between the past, present and future. This long-term commitment to global culture extends through music, architecture and cinema, along with the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. 

Established in 2002 to assist in the transfer of knowledge from one generation of artists to the next, the mentoring programme is based on the belief that art is a continuum, an accumulation of past experiences over generations, and that all artists are inspired by those who went before them. In keeping with the Rolex tradition of encouraging individual excellence, younger artists of exceptional promise – the protégés – are given the rare opportunity to spend significant periods of time in creative exchange with world-renowned artists in their particular field – the mentors – on a one-to-one basis. The programme today encompasses the disciplines of architecture, dance, film, literature, music, theatre and visual arts. There is also a variable, or “open category”, mentorship that can take place in other fields or in an interdisciplinary pursuit. These mentorships are grouped in alternating periods according to discipline.

The mentors who have so far given of their time and vast talent are among the world’s greatest artists. They are: Sir David Adjaye, Margaret Atwood, (the late) John Baldessari, Tahar Ben Jelloun, (the late) Trisha Brown, (the late) Patrice Chéreau, Sir David Chipperfield, Mia Couto, Alfonso Cuarón, (the late) Sir Colin Davis, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Olafur Eliasson, Brian Eno, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, William Forsythe, Stephen Frears, Gilberto Gil, Philip Glass, Alejandro G. Inárritu, (the late) Sir Peter Hall, David Hockney, Rebecca Horn, Zakir Hussain, Joan Jonas, Sir Anish Kapoor, William Kentridge, Jiˇrí Kylián, Robert Lepage, Lin Hwai-min, Phyllida Lloyd, Spike Lee, Lin-Manuel Miranda, (the late) Toni Morrison, Walter Murch, Ohad Naharin, Mira Nair, Youssou N’Dour, (the late) Jessye Norman, Michael Ondaatje, Crystal Pite, Alexei Ratmansky, Kaija Saariaho, Martin Scorsese, Kazuyo Sejima, Peter Sellars, Álvaro Siza, Wole Soyinka, Julie Taymor, Saburo Teshigawara, Jennifer Tipton, Colm Tóibín, Kate Valk, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carrie Mae Weems, Robert Wilson, Zhang Yimou, Pinchas Zukerman and Peter Zumthor.

ABOUT ROLEX
AN UNRIVALLED REPUTATION FOR QUALITY AND EXPERTISE

Rolex is an integrated and independent Swiss watch manufacture. Headquartered in Geneva, the brand is recognized the world over for its expertise and the quality of its products – symbols of excellence, elegance and prestige. The movements of its Oyster Perpetual and Cellini watches are certified by COSC, then tested in-house for their precision, performance and reliability. The Superlative Chronometer certification, symbolized by the green seal, confirms that each watch has successfully undergone tests conducted by Rolex in its own laboratories according to its own criteria. These are periodically validated by an independent external organization. 

The word ‘Perpetual’ is inscribed on every Rolex Oyster watch. But more than just a word on a dial, it is a philosophy that embodies the company’s vision and values. Hans Wilsdorf, the founder of the company, instilled a notion of perpetual excellence that would drive the company forward. This led Rolex to pioneer the development of the wristwatch and numerous major watchmaking innovations, such as the Oyster, the first waterproof wristwatch, launched in 1926, and the Perpetual rotor self-winding mechanism, invented in 1931. In the course of its history, Rolex has registered over 500 patents. At its four sites in Switzerland, the brand designs, develops and produces the majority of its watch components, from the casting of the gold alloys to the machining, crafting, assembly and finishing of the movement, case, dial and bracelet. Furthermore, the brand is actively involved in supporting the arts and culture, sport and exploration, as well as those who are devising solutions to preserve the planet.