Art’s Largest Annual Prize, the Praemium Imperiale, Announces Laureates
By Annette Meier
Recipients of the Praemium Imperiale 2024: ANG LEE (far left), MARIA JOAO PIRES (top left), SHIGERU BAN (bottom left), SOPHIE CALLE (top right), and DORIS SALCEDO (bottom right).
On September 10, the 35th Praemium Imperiale, known as the “Nobel Prize of the arts,” announced the recipients in each of the JPY 15 million (USD 104, 000) award’s five categories: Sophie Calle (France) was selected for painting; Doris Salcedo (Colombia) for sculpture; Shigeru Ban (Japan) for architecture; Maria João Pires (Portugal/Switzerland) for music; and Ang Lee (Taiwan) for theater and film. Salcedo and Lee are the first Japan Arts Association prize laureates from Colombia and Taiwan, respectively.
Paris-born conceptual artist Sophie Calle, known for exploring the lives of others and her own through poetic visual work, secured the spot in painting. Her notable projects include The Sleepers (1979), where she invited strangers into her home and photographed them asleep on her bed, as well as The Blind (1986), for which she asked those who were born blind about their conceptions of beauty.
Tokyo-born and based architect Shigeru Ban is renowned for his innovative timber, paper, and bamboo structures. He has received international acclaim for designing various institutions, including the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France, the Aspen Art Museum in the United States, and the Mt. Fuji World Heritage Center in Japan. He has also been involved in humanitarian projects for almost three decades, building evacuation and community centers for international refugees and victims of natural disasters.
Lisbon-based classical pianist Maria João Pires, who secured the music prize, has long dedicated herself to fostering music education in local communities. She founded Portugal’s Belgias Center for the Study of the Arts in 1999, where she developed choirs for children from rural areas. Her international debuts include performances at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1986, and New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1989.
The sculpture prize went to Bogotá-born artist Doris Salcedo, in honor of her sculptural and installation work about the violent civil war in her home country. One of her seminal works is Fragmentos (2018), for which she melted 37 tons of guerilla fighters’ weapons to commemorate the end of the decades-long conflict.
In recognition of his outstanding filmography, Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee received the award for theater and film. A two-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Director, as well as the first non-white director to receive the award, Lee’s work encompasses Sense and Sensibility (1995), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and Life of Pi (2012). In recent projects, he has further ventured into sociopolitical subject matters and genres.
Since its establishment in 1989, the Praemium Imperiale, funded by Japan’s imperial family, has annually selected five remarkable figures for their contributions to the international art scene. Along with an honorarium, each winner will receive a testimonial letter and a medal, to be presented by Prince Hitachi, the honorary patron of the Japan Art Association.
The official awards ceremony will be held at The Okura Tokyo, a luxury hotel in the Japanese capital, on November 19.
Annette Meier is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.
