Rolex's arts initiative creates bonds of inspiration

On a recent balmy afternoon in Brooklyn, New York, I sit down for lunch in the achingly cool mid-century-modern restaurant of the Ace Hotel with three rather fascinating lunch companions — artists Bronwyn Katz and Mateo Lopez and theatremaker Lara Foot Newton. We have just emerged from a weekend of sensory overload — a festival of ideas, exhibitions, screenings, musical interventions, conversations, and one splendid party on the stage of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which hosted the 2022 Rolex Arts Weekend in its various beautiful spaces in downtown Brooklyn.

This biannual celebration and culmination of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative has been paying it forward for more than two decades. The idea is that Rolex, through the structured, nuanced, and inspired programme, facilitates and supports the transfer of knowledge from established mentors to emerging younger practitioners in the creative fields of visual arts, music, dance, architecture, cinema, literature, and theatre. Along the path of the two-year mentorship strong connections are forged and magic is made, showcased at the weekend festival of ideas. Rolex runs a rigorous process.

Every two years it creates a highly regarded advisory committee packed with distinguished practitioners in their fields, who choose the four mentors who will take up the mantle. They also propose a selection of potential protégés, who then engage with the mentors in order to find synergies and potential for collaboration. Each mentor chooses a protégé from the shortlist with whom they believe they can find creative synergy and open dialogue for the following two years. The culmination is this joyous celebratory weekend where the ever-widening cohort of alumni meet to ferment relationships again and to see the work that has emerged from the most recent cycle.

We have just revelled in the fascinating work that emerged from the last pairing — of filmmaker Spike Lee with filmmaker Kyle Bell, film director Phyllida Lloyd with theatre-maker Whitney White, actor and theatre-maker Lin-Manuel Miranda with filmmaker Agustina San Martín, and visual artist Carrie Mae Weems with Camila Rodríguez Triana. In our little South African and South Africanadjacent group meeting for lunch are two alumni of the programme — Foot Newton, CEO of the Baxter Theatre, who was mentored by the great director Sir Peter Hall; and Colombian visual artist Lopez, mentored by celebrated artist William Kentridge.

Bronwyn Katz has just joined this group, as she is about to embark on the journey with the 2023-2024 group. Her mentor is the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. The world-renowned sculptor of monumental installations that redefine our relationship with the continent and nature had casually introduced himself to me over the weekend as El and kept the fact of his mentorship secret until the announcement of the new round. Katz’s work is multidisciplinary and socially engaged, as the Michaelis graduate was profoundly affected by the #RhodesMustFall movement as a student at UCT. She was born and raised in Kimberley, home to many of the fault lines in South African society, which have influenced the subjects she tackles in her practice. “I am informed by my family, Kimberley, the history of the space, the colonial scars, language — I tackle my work in Kora, which is my ancestral language,” she tells me.

The conversation turns to the uniqueness of each mentorship, with many of the lessons learnt often brewing and only culminating years later. “It was a disruption; it took me out of my comfort zone. It was pretty intense to see yourself next to someone with an amazing career and to think, ‘There are the possibilities.’ For example, I have a very slow process — it took me 10 years after the mentorship with William to feel that jump and to start exploring other formats in my practice, such as working with dancers and exploring performance. But I guess it’s important to have those moments that take you out of your comfort zone. It’s something I remember talking to William about a lot,” explains Lopez.

Foot Newton elaborates that the process is immensely generative. “People are saying, ‘Wow, you won this award, it’s fantastic, you are so lucky,’ but it’s not only about that, it is like a deep searching time and afterwards I was not quite on my feet, I was a little disrupted, which is good in the long term. It is a process.” I ask Katz if she is ready to be disrupted. “I think, being an artist, disruption is always good. You need to change to grow — I would not have agreed if I wanted to remain unchanged.”

Some of the most fertile ground created in this project is the synergies and engagements with such a diverse cast of alumni. Foot Newton tells me, “You become vastly aware of the Western world and the opportunities in New York, London, Paris, while a number of the protégés come from countries that are in conflict, or countries that have enormous poverty where they are not treated well at all. And this contrast and imbalance is something you have to get your head around and think a lot about. I was chatting with an Australian artist, where the state gave artists A$750 a week during Covid. A week. In South Africa we might have got the equivalent of US$300 for two years of Covid.

There is a huge disparity to navigate, but it is also wonderful because there is so much generosity around you.” After a weekend thinking about the mentor/protégé relationship, perhaps the heart of the experience for Lopez was to gain the opportunity to learn. “[This is about] how you stand in the world and what you want to do and the real meaning of what you want to do, and maybe replicating what you learnt from the mentoring experience and doing it for the next generation — engage, just engage.”