Diesel celebrated its grand opening of the first largest concept store in the world DIESEL SHIBUYA. Relocated in the basement floor, the newly renamed DIESEL ART GALLERY also welcomed its new start with a special collaboration.

For the opening, DISEL ART GALLERY featured a collaborative exhibition with a multimedia artist Simon Henwood, who is known for his creative direction work for Rihanna and Kanye West, and a jewelry designer Fannie Schiavoni, who is backed by celebrities such as Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.

For creating the exhibit concept, it goes back to their experience when the 2 artists visited Tokyo 4-5 months ago. It was a performance shown at a club. While there were about 50 people visited the venue, there were about 2,000 visitors viewing through the video streaming at home. Witnessed it, they paused to realize how we all were reliant on computers.
Today it became a common practice to receive much information from computers. They thought it was important to think about the mystery of nature now, and came up with a keyword ‘nature’. If people stay at home looking the computer screen all the time, it is impossible to feel a natural environment such as heat of sun, wind blowing, and change of temperature. They transformed this idea into the exhibit under the theme Black Sun.

Simon Henwood mentioned that something you see through the computer screen could not be more than copy of things. It is totally different from what you feel from the original source of information which you directly communicate with. He also talked about the importance of experiences to actually visit places like clubs and lives where things are happening, as you could recognize many things only by visiting such actual place. In the “Black Sun” exhibition, the shadow created by Fannie Schiavoni’s chain dress cannot accurately be shown on the computer. He thinks such details may affect us before we know it. That’s why he wanted to showcase “Black Sun”, not only as a book release, but also as an exhibition.

Started with an original plan to celebrate the book release of “Black Sun,” the exhibition showcases Simon Henwood’s sketch of an afro-hair-like spherical object and Fannie Schiavoni’s planet-like installation piece that was created by crossing chains three-dimensionally, both of which then are transformed into a crystal planet.

For chains used in the exhibition, Fannie Schiavoni was inspired by armor and military dress of the medieval Sweden. By connecting each ring by hands, flexible and unique structure was made possible to create a sculptural beauty of the form. The “Black Sun” world is expressed by adding some essence by Simon Henwood to Fannie Schiavoni’s dresses and objects created with chains.

A wide range of artworks such as illustrations, paintings, and photographs are exhibited at the Black Sun exhibition. They are currently planning to work on the second edition of this project to have various artists and musicians involved in it. Let’s stay tuned for what kind of Sun we can see in the next time.

The opening party of the Black Sun exhibition was held on 18th November at DISEL ART GALLERY where Fannie Schiavoni and Simon Henwood welcomed a number of guests, among them was Takashi Murakami, who came to feel and experience their creation.

Simon Henwood and Fannie Schiavoni also worked on the cover art for December issue of SHIFT. They left us a message for readers as follows: As artists we are used to living in our “own worlds”. Black sun should teach us all to remember the beauty of nature that is already here for us – before it is too late.
Anything we can create has already been done far better in nature already. If you look you will find.. even in the darkness of night there is beauty and creation in the shadows.

Simon Henwood + Fannie Schiavoni “BLACK SUN”
Date: November 20th, 2010 – February 13th, 2011
Opening Hours: 11:30-21:00
Place: DIESEL ART GALLERY
Address: B1&1F Cocoti, 1-23-16 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Tel: 0120-55-1978
Curator: Kimiko Mitani Woo / MW Company
http://www.diesel.co.jp/art