until Sunday June 09 2024

ADI Design Museum
piazza Compasso d’Oro 1
20154 Milan
Italy

More info:
https://www.adidesignmuseum.org

ADI Design Museum introduces a new perspective to Japanese design, titled Origin of Simplicity: 20 Visions of Japanese Design. This exhibition is a transversal overview through design and craftsmanship to understand the origins of the very concept of simplicity, which can be interpreted as emptiness (ku), space or silence (ma), sometimes readable as poverty (wabi) and consumption linked to use over time (sabi), and on other occasions as asymmetry, non-definition and imperfection: all concepts rooted in diverse philosophical schools of thought belonging to this culture ranging from Zen Buddhism to Shinto animist thought and almost the opposite of Western rationality.

The exhibition is a brand new piece of research conceived by curator Rossella Menegazzo, a researcher into the history of Japanese art and culture from the University of Milan, together with graphic and exhibition design by Japanese designer and curator Kenya Hara, who conceived the exhibition itinerary as a forest through which to walk.

On display, there are over 150 works, mostly unseen before in Italy and designed by the most representative names in modern and contemporary design, some of whom have written the history of Japanese design starting from the 1960s, along with other exponents from later generations who are less known to the international public.

Photo: Origami Shikki, Atsushi Morita, 2022