Nomadic Exhibition

Shayne Ehman and his friends.

The public offering and project exhibition “Nomadic Exhibition—Shayne Ehman and his friends” was took place from March 20th through April 20th at Tokyo Wonder Site Hongo.

NYC Street Art

What's this about free art on the streets of new york?

I can still remember the first piece of New York City street art that made an impression on me: walking through Williamsburg several years ago, I was stopped in my tracks by the haunting face of a young girl peering out at me from within a doorframe. Pasted on a door was a beautifully detailed woodcut print I would later learn had been crafted by the street artist Swoon. Down the street, I discovered what looked like a cover of a tawdry pulp fiction novel stenciled on some wooden scaffolding by a collective known as Faile… from that moment on, I was hooked. With a little patience, you too can develop a street art habit.

Faile © Luna Park

Makin Jan Ma

"My duty is to catch love behind all things, and share it with the others".

He writes stories and scripts and makes clothes for the characters, and then makes film for the stories with characters wearing clothes he designed. Film, photography, fashion, illustration, poetic words and etc. He is an artist who makes conceptual, yet playful use of a diverse range of mediums for his works. His name is Makin Jan Ma, whom you might have heard that he is one of the members of Janfamily, who has released a book titled 'Plans For Other Days' in 2005. Using such different mediums for his creation he makes things to express ideas overflowing inside him. He will take you on a journey to look closely into the fount of his creation.


AW08 - Can I Come Inside?

Could you tell us about yourself?

I grew up on a chicken farm in HK when I was young. I would wake up to thousands of chickens every morning. I climbed trees and rode my bicycle around all the time. I came to London to study Graphic Design when I was 19. I found out that I wasn't really living a normal life as all my friends from HK lived in tall buildings and had never even climbed a tree. I went to Central St. Martins for my BA. I started developing my own visual language. I spent everyday at the college to experiment new things, finding new interests. St Martins gave me the freedom to try and to make mistakes. By making many mistakes I started to have confidence in my own way of seeing things. Until the end of my BA course I realize I wanted more time to further develop my own language so I applied to go to the Royal College of Art. Luckily I got in and I gained 2 more years to think and make my works. RCA experience was invaluable to me. It helped me to slow down and think deeper. Also I learnt to see the beauty of sharing. Sharing creativity and also sharing life with the others.

Tough Love - Jeans Collection, Photo © Jez Tozer

Could you tell us your recent activities or projects?

International

This must be the Avant Garde.

Koichiro Kimura is a Sendai-based international designer and is also known as an owner of 'international', the interior showroom in Sendai-city. Kimura has developed his own style in working with both art and interior design using lacquerware, a main aspect of Japanese traditional craftsmanship. In recent years, Kimura has exhibited at several international exhibitions in addition to getting a lot of offers and commissions from many corporations worldwide.
We had a chance to interview Koichiro Kimura who continues on his course to making some of the most beautiful objects we’ve ever seen.

Please introduce yourself to the Shift readers.

5th Berlin Biennale

The daytime and night scenery of Berlin.

Fifth Berlin Biennale Biennale entitled “When things cast no shadow” begun on the 5th, April 2008.

This time the biennale was organized by the great young curator Adam Szymczyk and his partner Elena Filipovic. According to them, this is the biennale by young artists. In it, they compare places and conceptually stay away from the set terms connected exclusively to Berlin. Excluding Monday, the Biennale consists of exhibitions and sessions during the day and events at night.

Whitney Biennial 2008

The Biennial characterizes the state of American art today.

Phoebe Washburn, It Makes for My Billionaire Status, 2005 (installation view, Kantor/Feuer Gallery, Los Angeles, 2005).

The Whitney Biennial is being held this year, and with it comes the usual buzz it generates in the art scene of New York. This year the curators have decided to cover more installation and performance works than painting or sculpture.

Visionaire 53 Sound

"Sound," they once again rewrite the rules for a magazine.

It's likely you haven't heard of Visionaire, the exclusive art publisher. But after you see what they're up to, you'll wonder why you were kept in the dark for so long. Imagine a magazine that acts as an art collective. Each issue is conceived and overseen by the Visionaire editors, with artists, fashion designers, and photographers acting as guest collaborators.

UT Inspired: Number

UT Inspired vol.5 "Number"

UT Inspired is a world wide design project, curators in cities become the center for artists from all over the world. Their mission, to make a T-shirt. The theme of the fifth series, curated by SHIFT, is "Number". We interviewed the artists who designed the T-shirts incorporating their characteristic interpretations on the theme.

Lyon Biennale 2007

The last installment of trilogy presented by Raspail.

“Sans titre”, Josh Smith, 2007

2007 saw the 9th Lyon Biennial of Contemporary Art launched in 1991 by Thierry Raspail, the director of Lyon Modern Museum. It was almost the only worldwide exhibition in France. Followed by two exhibitions, “It Happened Tomorrow” in 2003 and “The Experiencing Duration” in 2005 each presenting “Future” and “Past”, he tried “Archaeology of The Present” in his last exhibition in the triptych on the subject of “Time”.

Raspail, the artistic director, chose 2 curators for this exhibition: Stéphanie Moisdon born in 1967 and Hans-Ulrich Obrist born in 1968.

Michael Young

Most inspiring British designer.

Giant with DEM, 2007

Michael Young is an internationally established product designer who was sited by Terance Conran as the "most inspiring British designer" in 1995. His works span across various genres.

WRO Art Center

A leading contemporary art, media and technology institution in Wroclaw, Poland.

WRO Art Center entrance. Photo by Michal Szota

WRO Art Center is a leading contemporary art, media and technology institution, and a newly-founded permanent exhibition/lab space from the makers of International Media Art Biennale WRO, based in Wroclaw, Poland.

Anntian

When you think of summer, what comes to your mind?

Do you think of the early morning, when the air is still cool and refreshing? Or do you think of the afternoon, when it’s so hot that everything you can do is laze in the shadow and watch the glittering of the ocean?

"Whitecaps", this year’s summer collection by Berlin based fashion label Anntian, grounds on certain feelings and pictures that a day at the seaside evokes. Ebb and flow of the days there, with their changing stages and moods, serve as an inspiration for the heavenly colors and shimmering, breezy prints: sunrise, crack of dawn, midday heat, afternoon, evening hours and sunset... The entire collection goes along and benefits nature, so do the prints, that convey the impression of camouflage. All tends to be fluent, unagitated and rather quiet.
The collection radiates homogeneity since all garments derive from the same idea, in particular the idea of conforming with nature...

China Design Now Exhibition

Made in China.

The familiar words "Made in China" are about to take on a whole new meaning, if the V&A contemporary wing's China Design Now exhibition is anything to go by.

FABRICA: LES YEUX OUVERTS

Nothing but the feeling of "I must tell it."

There are posters that reveal strong images of the campaign to stop AIDS and which represent the discrimination through photos that put handcuffs on White and Black.
You must have seen these serious of poster before, created by United Colors of Benetton's "some creative factory".

Something Old... Exhibition

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue.

Ari Marcopoulos, Alice, 2008

Aaron Rose, the independent curator of this show, is mostly known in connection with the smart art magazine ANP Quarterly and the travelling exhibition Beautiful Losers, a point of view on spontaneous art movements born in different youth environments such as skateboarding and hip hop and also the synthesis of work Mr.Rose has done in almost ten years as curator of the NYC Alleged Gallery.

Vlieger & Vandam

Multi-tasking, multi-linguist, hyper-intelligent, super-human people-pleaser.

Vlieger & Vandam comprise Carolien and Hein (respectively), a Dutch husband-and-wife team who's happy union was the result of a friend's casual match-making exploits. This cupidinous friend may well be eligible for a hefty finders' fee, considering the astronomical success of her little project both romantically (they married last year), and creatively. They now produce 2 collections a year, their products sell in over 50 boutiques around the world, and their much-loved Guardian Angel bag was added to MoMA's permanent collection in 2006.

Neither of them studied fashion, and perhaps that is why they have managed to corner a niche for high design, quality bags which combine irresistable tongue-in-cheek statements with practical usability and an across-the-board appeal.

I had the pleasure of meeting with them at their Rotterdam home / workshop, for some tea and biscuits, and a little chat.

Camp Berlin

Artists who migrate from one place to another.

People leave their home for various reasons; some in need for work to support themselves financially, some desperate to move because of wars or other forms of tragedies, and others longing for progress in life. People moved to places for their own dignity or their activities, and various artists from the 20th century also migrated away from their homes; from Pablo Picasso, Man Ray and Salvador Dali, to Jonas Mekas, and Nam June Paik.

Introduced here was the exhibition, Camp Berlin, based on the theme of "migration" to showcase works in a platform, which appeared to be an exchange program between Hiroshima City University and the School of Art and Design Berlin Weissensee. It was run by Hiroshima Art Project. It was interesting that most of the participating Japanese artists were based in Germany, and also, out of over 30 artists, most of them had an actual experience of the theme as they had migrated from one place to another.

London Fashion Week 2008

Attention to the New Comers.

Monnday 5;00 pm Ana Sekularac
When I arrive at the venue in Poland Place, all the buyers and members of press were mingling in front of the beautiful Victorian house waiting for the opening. Black cabs keep dropping off excited looking clients and exhausted editors one after another. Now here’s the tip, you should never look pissed off for the schedule and never be on time. That’s what Londoners do and this is London Fashion Week (henceforth LFW).

The Ana Sekularac show started with a little trick. As soon as the music started, a wall that had partitioned two small rooms sank into the ground. Sekularac had been working on the fashion desk at Italian Cosmopolitan and the Daily Mail and started her own collection last year. As the themes for this season, she chooses Italian renaissance and female matador. She continues with the style of three-dimensional sleeve and collar which makes them look like beautiful sculpture work. The Ruffle blouse and the waist-squeezed skirt are clearly inspired by the bravery and grace of the female matador. Monotone as base colour, bright saturated red and blue comes along. Maybe there are not many bulls to fight here in London but girls do need to fight sometimes. So here she presents us with stylish battle fatigues which give us inner strength to deal with the world.

ChilliChilly

Product design that finds the balance of art and practical living.

For their brand, ChilliChilly, a Hong Kong based product design brand, Arthur Yung and Clement Cheung use narrative form in their design. Having studied architecture, they apply a subtle twist to their design, which gives them a great reputation.

They have recently participated in the Matching Project initiated by SCV (Shizuoka Contents Valley Consortium), to work with a local firm in Shizuoka developing together a design on the theme of "Kids Corner". We had a chance to interview them and asked about their vision on design and various projects that they have been involved.

Please could you introduce ChilliChilly?

Hong Kong & Shenzhen Biennale 2008

The first largest scale architecture Biennale in Hong Kong.

© Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism / Architecture

The Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism / Architecture is the first ever exposition on architecture and the urban environment co-hosted by Hong Kong and Shenzhen. The Hong Kong exhibition has the theme of ‘Refabricating City’. It intends to explore and compare Hong Kong’s urban conditions to international cities worldwide, stimulate public debate about the quality and modes of city living and relevant social and cultural issues, and to show how architecture and urban spaces are intimately linked to our daily life.

© Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism / Architecture