The Assassination of Art

Bronze is gold or white is right?

Making my way from Hong Kong to Bangkok, I came across a colorful reminder of differing values - built on common anxieties. A sun deck crowned the top of my hotel: a number of chaises longues aligned to enable maximum roasting effect, taking in as much of the sun as possible, no matter what time of day. Meanwhile, at the airport, it was difficult to avoid slick displays of what seems like an endless supply of rather expensive cosmetic products designed to make Asian women's (and men's) skin whiter.

In the West, bronze is gold: perfectly tanned women are used to advertise a wide range of products formulated to give our skin a caramel glow. How ironic that in these parts of the world where I am now, the same global cosmetics companies sell products designed to do the exact opposite, promoting in the process ideals of beauty that keep reinforcing the alleged supremacy of Western looks and standards (whiter is better because white is right).

What strikes me though is how those polar opposites have been converging. The sun deck looked almost abandoned, as if it had not been used for a long time. On the cover of the latest New York Times T Magazine, Emily Blunt's skin was made to look ghostly white, almost like a geisha. As we become more and more aware of the damage that the sun can inflict on our skin, could it be that in the West we are going back to the time in the middle ages when pale skin was a sign of superior social standing? What will become of countless hotel rooftops, architectural remnants of yesterday's stereotypes?

Chinese Red Everywhere

Another Hong Kong delicacy, in my opinion, is the Red Taxi. As a New Yorker, I am incredibly proud of the icon status that our yellow cab has achieved (and no, this love is not fueled by the fact that in 2007 I had a wonderful time designing the Taxi 07 exhibit, which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the yellow cab in NYC, for The Design Trust for Public Space).

As a tourist in Hong Kong, I find myself enjoying the fact that these red flashbacks to 1980's car designs are everywhere. In this permanently humid environment, they offer the solace of much needed air-conditioning. I am not certain if it is the car model and color that give the Red Taxi its appeal, or if it is the fact that it reminds me of their yellow counterparts back home. Whatever the case, I find them to be 'super cool'.

Volume

Night time:

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Daytime:

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Volume is a luminous interactive installation that was presented last winter at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. While I had heard many great things about this piece from my friends who had the chance to experience it in the UK, I was lucky enough to visit the interactive space earlier today as it is now situated in Hong Kong's Museum of Art.

Volume is a sculpture of light and sound and consists of an array of light columns positioned symmetrically as a perfect square. The installation responds to human movement, creating a series of audio-visual experiences. Visitors are invited to step inside and see their actions at play with the energy fields throughout the space, triggering a brilliant display of light and sound.

Volume was created by United Visual Artists in a collaboration with Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack and his long-term co-writer Neil Davidge.

What resonated with me in particular is the need for collaboration for the artwork to be complete - collaboration not only between a group of multi-media artists and a couple of musicians, but also with the random strangers whose physical presence makes the installation different each and every time. To me the art of creation is as much about one person's vision as it is about harnessing the energies and talents of a unique group of people at a specific time.

Separated at birth

Takashi Murakami's DOB characters

& The Beijing Olympics Mascots.

Designing Design

Last night, I went to see Kenya Hara speak at an AIGA event. Kenya is the creative director of Muji, who has just published a new book, entitled "Designing Design." In this 474-page, fully illustrated hardcover tome, Mr. Hara, one of the Japanese design community's most comprehensive and impressive thinkers and most prolific designers, explains his work in the context of changing global power structures, the "prank of postmodernism," and historical changes in design and production. Easily approachable as a designer and writer, Hara is at once both inspirational and lucid.

I found him to be inspirational, as he is able to successfully fulfill quite a broad range of roles. He runs his own studio within the august Nippon Design Center, acts as a professor at Musashino Art University and is both a board member and the art director of MUJI, the no-name brand founded by a brilliant boom-era bond between Japanese business and design. As a designer, a visual communicator, a thinker and a speaker, Hara skillfully represents the newly maturing generation of designers born in post World War II Japan and who were raised in the shifting sands of the 1960s and 70s, when the nation transformed itself from a heavily militaristic Asian society with feudal roots into a developing power in a Euro-centric economic world.

While there were parts of the lecture that were difficult to follow (Mr. Hara read from a piece of paper for the entirety of the presentation in a heavy Japanese accent) there were many things that sparked my imagination. For example, Designing Design is Mr. Hara's first book written specifically for an English-reading audience, and as such, introduces and explains the importance of such concepts as "emptiness" in the visual and philosophical traditions of Japan, and their application to design

If you have a chance to purchase the book, do it! I highly recommend it. Otherwise, browse through its pages next time you are at a Barnes & Noble.