Inspire me

Kenya Hara is a rare man, and his rhetoric is as exquisitely formed as his designs. His ethos at Muji, where he has been art director since 2002, is to render an object beautiful by pruning away anything extraneous or unnecessary. It’s a concept that also governs his speech, so that when he answers a question about an egg or a spoon, he discards the obvious or dull, and becomes a metaphysical poet rather than a designer. He uses phrases like “providence of nature,” and “emptiness is richer than fullness,” and “peace of the senses” with a calm, assured composure. If Kenya Hara were an object, he’d be a Muji notebook: full of purpose, integrity, and restraint, and brimming with promise.

From a block away, you could smell the Nag Champa in the air, like a sandalwood smoke signal. As you got closer you could hear the music echoing through the canyon of Manhattan, then see the crowd outside the building, sometimes 40 or 50 deep, spilling off the sidewalk onto Lafayette Street. The locus of it all was ostensibly a store—but back then, when it first opened, in 1994, retail concerns seemed incidental to the real purpose of Supreme, which sprung to life as a frenetic meet-up spot for the growing downtown New York skate community. https://www.gq.com/story/inside-supreme

Apple has collaborated with New York's New Museum to launch a series of augmented reality (AR) experiences that will see six large-scale virtual artworks take over major global cities. Called [AR]T, the AR experiences will feature works by seven artists chosen by the contemporary art museum, that will pop up across London, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo. American artist Nick Cave imagines colourful alien-like figures dancing on buildings Offered to the public for free from Apple stores across the globe. The artists involved are Nick Cave, Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, Cao Fei, John Giorno, Carsten Höller and Pipilotti Rist. In the various works, large alien-like creatures can be spotted dancing atop city buildings, and portals offer a glimpse into alternative, sketch-style worlds with no perspective.

Nestlé is on a mission to do its bit for the planet, having committed to using 100% recyclable and reusable packaging by 2025. Its latest step forward involves a huge part of its business: Nestlé Japan’s KitKat packaging. Famously available in a variety of flavours and sold by the bucketload to tourists and chocoholics alike, the brand is now switching some of its packaging from plastic to paper and expecting to save 380 tonnes of plastic every year as a result.

Born in 1985 in Tokyo, into a family running a public bathhouse, “Kabuki-yu” in Kabukicho in Shinjuku, an entertainment district located in the center of Tokyo. His mother is an instructor of Waldorf dolls, used in Waldorf or Steiner education. His parents raised him in the historic city of Kamakura, where his creativity was cultivated. At the Tokyo University of the Arts, Tatehana studied fine arts and Japanese crafts, and later majored in dyeing and weaving. While at university, he was engaged in the study of “Oiran” or the courtesans in Meiji period. In the meantime, he created kimono and geta using Yūzen-zome, the traditional Japanese dyeing method. In recent years, as a contemporary artist, Tatehana has taken part in exhibitions around the world and has created works that incorporate handicrafts of the Japanese traditional craftsmen that had been passed on for generations. In March 2016, he directed a Ningyo-joruri bunraku show which was performed at Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in France for his first time. Tatehana’s works are held in the public collections of museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Victoria and Albert Museum.

A city is being built with Lego pieces and everyone Can Join The Process. We’re all used to going to an exhibition to appreciate someone’s work, be it ancient or modern, with a natural sense of physical detachment, since it’s rare that art pieces are available for touching. Well, not when it comes to certain pieces, like that of a Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson titled “The Cubic Structural Evolution Project”. The project that’s hosted at Tate Modern gallery in London. It invites people from all over the world, of any age, to contribute to the piece. What is the piece you might ask? A free-form Lego structure with anyone available contributing to the artwork. Oh, and unlike the typical Lego pieces, ones involved in “The Cubic Structural Evolution Project” are completely white and devoid of any building instructions. This artwork-installation in London allows anyone visiting to contribute to it. A true city for all.