Praemium Imperiale winners announced: there are Giulio Paolini, Ai Weiwei and Wim Wenders

The winners of the 2022 edition of the Praemium Imperiale, the Nobel Prize in Art awarded to art world figures from around the world, were announced this morning in Rome at the Westin Excelsior hotel and simultaneously in five other cities around the world (Tokyo, New York, London, Paris and Berlin). These are the winners of the five sections of the most important and prestigious award in the art world.

For the sculpture section the prize went to Aiwewei; for painting to Giulio Paolini, Studio Sanaa (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa) for architecture, for the music category the Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman was awarded, and for the film section Wim Wenders.

The prestigious award will be presented in Tokyo on Oct. 19 at an awards ceremony by Prince Hitachi, Honorary Patron of the Japan Art Associaton, Japan’s oldest cultural foundation established in 1887, which operates the Ueno Royal Museum located in Tokyo’s Ueno Park and organizes art exhibitions.

Artists are honored for their achievements, their influence on the art world internationally, and their contributions to the world community through their work. Each of the winners will receive a prize of 15 million yen (about 105,000 euros), a diploma and a medal. In 2021, due to the uncertainties caused by the covid-19 pandemic, the usual award ceremony in Tokyo, with all the awardees present, was replaced by individual ceremonies held at the Embassy of Japan locations in each awardee’s country.

The Praemium Imperiale is the most important and prestigious art award in existence and is awarded in five disciplines: painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and theater/cinema. Now in its 33rd year, it has grown to acquire undisputed prominence in the art world. It confers international recognition in the arts similar to the Nobel Prizes in science and literature.

The 2022 winners will join the 164 artists already honored with the prize, including Claudio Abbado, Gae Aulenti, Ingmar Bergman, Luciano Berio, Cecco Bonanotte, Leonard Bernstein, Peter Brook, Anthony Caro, Enrico Castellani, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Federico Fellini, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Jean-Luc Godard, David Hockney, Willem de Kooning, Akira Kurosawa, Wolfgang Laib, Sophia Loren, Umberto Mastroianni, Mario Merz, Issey Miyake, Riccardo Muti, Giuseppe Penone, Renzo Piano, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Maya Plisetskaya, Maurizio Pollini, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Robert Rauschenberg, Mstislav Rostropovich, Ravi Shankar, Mitsuko Uchida, Giuliano Vangi.

Praemium Imperiale 2022 Fellowship for Young Artists.

In addition to awarding the Praemium Imperiale in five different categories, since 1997 the Japan Art Association has awarded an annual Fellowship to a group or institution that promotes youth participation in art. Winner of the Praemium Imperiale 2022 Young Artists Fellowship is the Kronberg Academy Foundation (Germany). The selection is made, on a rotating basis, by each of the International Councilors, and the award-a diploma and a grant of 5 million yen (about 35,000 euros)-is presented at the same time as the announcement of the Praemium Imperiale, in the country of the International Councilor to whom it is awarded. This year the choice was made by the German Adviser, Prof. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, and the announcement and awarding of the Fellowship took place on September 15 in Berlin, at the residence of the Japanese Ambassador to Germany.

The Japan Art Association is Japan’s oldest cultural foundation. Honorary Patrons of the Japan Art Association have always been members of the Imperial Household, starting with Prince Arisugawa. The current Honorary Patron, in office since 1987, is Prince Hitachi, younger brother of Emperor Emeritus Akihito. On the occasion of the Japan Art Association’s centennial, it was decided to create an award in honor of the late Prince Takamatsu (1905-1987), who had been the Association’s Honorary Patron for 58 years. In 1988 the Praemium Imperiale was established, and in 1989 its first award ceremony took place in Tokyo. Prince Takamatsu’s wish that Japan could promote world peace through the arts is still the inspiring motive for the award today. Consisting of a group of five awards, the Praemium Imperiale is a tangible recognition of the universal value of art, giving due honor to the most outstanding international personalities in the fields of painting, sculpture, architecture, music and theater/cinema. Appropriate committees chaired by the International Councilors annually present lists of nominees in the five categories.

The International Councilors include statesmen and prominent business, financial and cultural figures: Lamberto Dini (former Prime Minister of Italy), Christopher Patten (Chancellor of Oxford University), Klaus-Dieter Lehmann (former#President of the Goethe-Institut), Jean-Pierre Raffarin (former Prime Minister of France) and Hillary Clinton (former Secretary of State of the United States of America). Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who passed away on July 8, was International Advisor since September 2021. Japan Art Association Selection Committees evaluate nominations and select a winner in each category, which receives final approval from the Association’s Board of Directors. Resigning Board members David Rockefeller Jr., François Pinault (President of the Pinault Foundation of Contemporary Art) and William H. Luers (former President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) are supporting the Praemium Imperiale as Honorary Board members.

Praemium Imperiale winners announced: there are Giulio Paolini, Ai Weiwei and Wim Wenders

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