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Overlooked No More: Junichi Arai, Innovative Textile Designer (Published 2022)

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Overlooked No More: Junichi Arai, Innovative Textile Designer (Published 2022)

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His experimentations with different materials and technology earned him widespread recognition as well as patents and awards.

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Junichi Arai (1932 - 2017) was a Japanese textile designer and producer born in Kiryu, Gunma. Arai was an acknowledged leader in experimental weaving technology, combining traditional and futuristic, often with unexpected qualities. He worked closely with the fashion designer Issey Miyake in the 1980s.

Biography

As the sixth generation of a mill-owning family, Arai grew up with fabrics being woven for obis and kimonos. He held traditional weaving methods in high regard and the skills that only the human hand can have in the art of fabric making. Nuno Corporation, a company and retail store that manufactures and sells innovative functional fabrics, was founded in 1984. Arai took a conventional approach to his business, hiring local craftspeople to help him develop his work, even though his work was technically innovative.

Junichi Arai, who travelled extensively to examine world textiles closely, admired how fabric exposes the depth of a culture's history, but also noted the material's potential to better reflect 20th-century changes. He noted: "Among all cultural heritages, there is nothing more abundant than fabric. Nothing can exceed its warmth...Are the present textile artists creating a fabric that embraces contemporary ideology?" (Buchanan, 2022)

Arai specialised in deeply textured, sculptural fabrications using celluloid, aluminium tape, metallic filament, silk, and polyester; shifted to technological experimentation, maximising the potential of punched cards used on jacquard looms by producing them by the computer; created fabrics from yarns with different shrinkage rates and under extreme heat; and lacerated film into complex wefts.

He then worked as an independent designer through his Nuno shop in Tokyo.

Collections

Arai's textiles are in the permanent collections of many museums, including MoMA, the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Recognition

Junichi Arai was given Tokyo's Mainichi Fashion Award in 1983 and became an Honorary Royal Designer for Industry in London in 1987.

Junichi Arai 26 Mar 2000, Sun The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, California) Newspapers.com

Sources

Benhow-Pfalzgraf, T. (1970, January 1). Contemporary fashion. Internet Archive. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://archive.org/details/contemporaryfash0000unse_k0w9/page/26/mode/2up?q=%22Junichi%2BArai%2B%22

Buchanan. (2022). Object Lesson: Junichi Arai. NOMA - New Orleans Museum of Art. Retrieved April 9, 2023, from https://noma.org/object-lesson-junichi-arai/

Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing.

Junichi Arai. Junichi Arai | Biography | People | Collection of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. (n.d.). https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/people/18045617/bio#ch.

Louie, E. (2022, May 13). Overlooked no more: Junichi Arai, Innovative Textile Designer. The New York Times. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/13/obituaries/junichi-arai-overlooked.html

New York, NY : Museum of Modern Art : Distributed in the United States by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers. (2009, January 1). Japanese design : Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.). Internet Archive. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://archive.org/details/japanesedesign0000muse/page/28/mode/2up?q=%22Junichi%2BArai%2B%22

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Junichi Arai (1932 - 2017), Japanese textile designer and producer

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Junichi Arai (1932 - 2017) was a Japanese textile designer and producer born in Kiryu, Gunma. Arai was an acknowledged leader in experimental weaving technology, combining traditional and futuristic, often with unexpected qualities. He worked closely with the fashion designer Issey Miyake in the 1980s.

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Né en 1938 à Kharkiv, Ukraine, Boris Mikhaïlov est un photographe autodidacte. Ingénieur de formation, il est renvoyé de son poste à la fin des années 60 quand le KGB découvre des clichés de sa femme nue. Il se consacre dès lors exclusivement à la photographie.

Aujourd'hui considéré comme l'un des artistes majeurs de la scène artistique mondiale, il a reçu de nombreuses distinctions, notamment le 2015 Goslar Kaiserring Award, le Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize (aujourd'hui le Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Award) en 2001 et le Hasselblad Award en 2000. Il a représenté l'Ukraine à la Biennale de Venise en 2007, puis à nouveau en 2017.

Son œuvre a été présentée dans les plus grands musées internationaux dont la Tate Modern, Londres, et le MoMA, New York, ainsi que plus récemment le Berlinische Galerie et C/O Berlin à Berlin, le Pinchuk Art Center à Kiev, le Sprengel Museum à Hannover et le Staatliche Kunsthalle à Baden Baden.

Boris Mikhaïlov est représenté à Paris par la galerie Suzanne Tarasieve. Il expose également ses œuvres à la galerie Sprovieri à Londres, Guidocosta Projects à Turin, Barbara Gross à Munich et Galerie Barbara Weiss à Berlin.

Il vit entre Berlin et Kharkiv avec sa femme, Vita.

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Né en 1938 à Kharkiv, Ukraine, Boris Mikhaïlov est un photographe autodidacte. Ingénieur de formation, il est renvoyé de son poste à la fin des années 60 quand le KGB découvre des clichés de sa femme nue. Il se consacre dès lors exclusivement à la photographie.

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KUMIHIMO: Japanese Silk Braiding by DOMYO - Japan House London

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組紐

Discover the past, present and possible futures of kumihimo, an intricate, decorative braided cord from Japan, in the first major UK exhibition exploring this ancient yet contemporary Japanese art.

Literally translating as 'joining threads together', kumihimo is characterized by its vivid colours and intricate patterns, and is created by expert craftspeople who combine up to 140 hand-dyed threads, often made of silk.

KUMIHIMO: Japanese Silk Braiding by brings the story of Japanese braiding to life with floor-to-ceiling installations, absorbing video, creative displays of equipment and tools and more than 50 different examples of the braids themselves, imaginatively presented throughout the gallery.

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KUMIHIMO: Japanese Silk Braiding by DOMYO - Japan House London

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Discover the past, present and possible futures of kumihimo, an intricate, decorative braided cord from Japan, in the first major UK exhibition exploring this ancient yet contemporary Japanese art. Literally translating as 'joining threads together', kumihimo is characterized by its vivid colours and intricate patterns, and is created by expert craftspeople who combine up to 140 hand-dyed threads, often made of silk.