Rolex has announced the latest round of mentors and protégés for its renowned arts mentoring programme.
Established in 2002, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative aims to aid in the transmission of artistic knowledge and craft from one generation to the next.
For the 2023–2024 Arts Programme, five of the world’s most respected artists will each mentor an outstanding emerging artist.
The mentors and their protégés, who come from across the globe, will spend the next two years in creative collaboration.
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.
The announcement was made during the Rolex Arts Weekend, a multidisciplinary festival co-presented by the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative and BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music).
Held from 9-10 September 2022, the Rolex Art Weekend featured world-renowned artists Spike Lee, Phyllida Lloyd, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Carrie Mae Weems and their protégés.
The protégés – filmmaker Kyle Bell, visual artist Camila Rodríguez Triana, theatremaker Whitney White and filmmaker and visual artist Agustina San Martín – presented new work inspired by two years of creative exchange with their mentors.
