LOEWE Foundation Craft Prize 2026 Exhibition in Singapore

Singaporean bookbinder Adelene Koh among the 30 finalists

The LOEWE Foundation Craft Prize has come to Southeast Asia for the first time, with the 2026 finalist exhibition opening at the National Gallery Singapore on 13 May and running until 14 June. Now in its ninth edition, the Prize received more than 5,100 submissions from 133 countries and regions this year. The jury determined a shortlist of 30 finalists working across ceramics, woodwork, textiles, bookbinding, glass, metalwork, jewellery and lacquer.

Endless (2025) by Adelene Koh. Image courtesy of LOEWE Foundation.

The jury, chaired by Sheila Loewe, President of the LOEWE Foundation, counts among its members Naoto Fukasawa of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Olivier Gabet of the Louvre and Abraham Thomas of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, alongside first-time jurors Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, creative directors of LOEWE. 

In selecting the finalists, Loewe says the panel sought artists who were preserving craft traditions at risk of disappearing, and those whose work tested the outer limits of a given medium. “For me, this is especially exciting because it shows craft as something living and evolving, not something static or nostalgic,” she says.  This year’s finalists range from artists working with fragility, balance and transformation, and those who built their own materials and tools to realise their pieces.

Singapore is the first Southeast Asian city to host an exhibition for the Prize, which has previously shown in London, Tokyo, Paris, New York, Seoul and Madrid. “Singapore feels like a very natural and important place for this edition of the Prize,” says Loewe. “It sits at the heart of a region where craft, material knowledge and artistic traditions still have a very strong cultural presence, while at the same time there is a growing interest in contemporary craft from institutions, younger audiences, the creative industries and the media.” The National Gallery Singapore, in this case, anchors the exhibition in the art  history of the region.

Adelene Koh. Image courtesy of LOEWE Foundation.

Singaporean bookbinder Adelene Koh, based in Tainan, Taiwan, is among this year’s 30 finalists. Her submitted work Endless (2025) dissects the anatomy of the book into a compact wheel of cream-white pages, both regimented and rhythmically chromatic. “It may not immediately be recognisable as a book, as the work forms a continuous loop rather than a conventional book structure,” Koh says. “However, it still employs key elements such as the quires and the endband, along with the techniques found in bookbinding.” Her process takes the endband, a narrow strip ordinarily hidden inside a book’s spine, and opens it into a continuous loop sewn by hand using multicoloured embroidery threads and a traditional English technique from the 18th century. 

Details of Endless (2025) by Adelene Koh. Image courtesy of LOEWE Foundation.

Koh speaks of being shortlisted with quiet candour. “Bookbinding is a practice that is not always widely understood,” she says. “In that sense, this recognition is an affirmation, both in my own work and the practice of bookbinding.” Returning to Singapore to see her work installed on the walls of the National Gallery Singapore is an exciting experience. “Something I made quietly in my studio now exists in a public space, encountered by everyone,” muses Koh. It is a shift in scale she is still quietly absorbing.

That sense of encounter is  what the Prize seeks. “The Craft Prize continues to reveal the extraordinary diversity and ambition of contemporary craft,” Loewe says. “The works shortlisted for the 2026 edition demonstrate how deeply rooted traditions can be reimagined through innovation, skill and imagination. Bringing this exhibition to Singapore reflects the global dialogue at the heart of the Prize and our ongoing commitment to supporting artists at pivotal moments in their careers.” 

The winner and two special mentions will be announced on 12 May 2026, and  the winner will receive a cash prize of  €50,000. The exhibition is open to the public at the National Gallery Singapore from 13 May to 14 June 2026. Learn more here.