"Rolex mentors announce their artist selections"

Roslyn Lucas | New York Times, 19.05.14

They are the chosen ones—at least for the next year. The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative has announced the names of the seven emerging artists selected to work with major figures in film, literature, dance, visual arts, music, theater and architecture in a program that pairs them with promising young artists. The pairings are intended to help foster a new generation of talent.

They are: Sammy Baloji, an artist and photographer from the Democratic Republic of Congo, for visual arts; Gloria Cabral, from Paraguay, for architecture; the Portuguese composer Vasco Mendonça for music; the Bulgarian-American Miroslav Penkov for literature; Tom Shoval from Israel for film; the Mexican lighting designer Sebastián Solórzano Rodríguez for theater; and the American Myles Thatcher, a corps de ballet member of the San Francisco Ballet, for dance.

The mentors, announced in October, are Olafur Eliasson (visual arts), Alejandro González Iñárritu (film), Michael Ondaatje (literature), Alexei Ratmansky (dance), Kaija Saariaho (music), Jennifer Tipton (theater) and Peter Zumthor (architecture). Each has chosen his or her protégé from a short-list that Rolex put together after a search led by committees of experts in each discipline.