NEW YORK, NY.- Today Rolex announced that acclaimed visual artist William Kentridge has selected Mateo López of Colombia as his protégé for the 2012-2013 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. The program gives exceptional young talents in dance, music, visual arts, theater, literature, and film the opportunity of a lifetime—to work with a master in their field for a year of creative collaboration. Over the next year Kentridge and López will spend up to several months together, exchanging ideas and engaging in an extended creative dialogue. The other five protégés (profiled below) include another artist from South America, three from Europe, and one from Egypt. Joining Kentridge as 2012-2013 Rolex Mentors are Margaret Atwood, Patrice Chéreau, Gilberto Gil, Lin Hwai-Min, and Walter Murch.

Colombian visual artist Mateo López, 33, creates installations that draw on his personal recollections of his journeys through South America. His exhibition Topografía anecdótica (Anecdotal Topography, Bogotá, 2008) was a narrative built on drawings, objects and photographs from his 2,153-km motorcycle trip through Colombia. López’s installation Viaje sin movimiento (Travelling without movement, 2008-2010) was acquired by New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). In 2010, his project Ping Pong, a visual dialogue – 31 topics through 62 images – with artist José Antonio Suárez, was presented at Art Basel.

A visual artist whose creativity has led him to other media, William Kentridge is acclaimed for his compelling work that meshes the personal and political influences of his life in South Africa during and after apartheid. He is best known for his innovative fusion of charcoal drawing, animation, film and theatre, including the animation that he created for multi-media theatre pieces made with the Handspring Puppet Company, and his celebrated “Nine Drawings for Projection” film series. In the last year, Kentridge’s work has been seen at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan, MoMA New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna and the Louvre and Jeu de Paume in Paris. He was chosen as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world for 2009. In 2010, he received the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy, and, in 2011, was elected as an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.