The power station of Design (psD), PSA’s creative extension, will present Kazuhiro Yamanaka: Visible X Invisible from March 3rd to May 2nd, 2017.This will be the Japanese product/interior designer’s first solo exhibition on the Chinese mainland, whose cross-disciplinary creative practices of unique style challenges the boundaries between product design, lighting design and pure art. The exhibition will feature 14 most representative works from Yamakana’s design career, including One Thousand Nights (2006), a dynamic lighting installation, and Collapsible Moon (2016), a new work specially commissioned for his China solo. Little inc. is also involved in design of the exhibition space, while Y2 Lighting Design is responsible for its lighting effects.

Kazuhiro Yamanaka is highly skilled at developing poetry of minimalism with common materials, such as paper or plastic seen in his works like Handkerchief Light (1999), It’s Only a Paper Moon (2012), and Paper Torch (2013), to create flexible yet simple geometrical shapes. Such an aesthetic expression that adores the limits of creative design further reveals a kind of simple but tasteful poetry in the complicated daily life, just as Yamanaka once said, “Designers should contemplate how to create a maximum impact with minimum use of material.”

Yamanaka’s design inspirations usually come from the relation between objects: “I admire the space around objects, not the objects itself. Designing the object is meaningless to me; object is just a tool to design the space around”. How to express the space between objects has become the designer’s most important task. In his designs of piece furniture such as Sleepy Lagoon (2009), How Slow the Wind – Chair (2001), and In Autumn Sunshine (2009), Yamanaka utilized spatial elements like planes and lines, as well as creative methods including cutting, squeezing and slitting. With these, he emphasizes three-dimensional profoundness and creates a kind of illusion for viewers, offering those invisible space relations a strong visual presence.

Yamanaka’s design inspirations usually come from the relation between objects: “I admire the space around objects, not the objects itself. Designing the object is meaningless to me; object is just a tool to design the space around”. How to express the space between objects has become the designer’s most important task. In his designs of piece furniture such as Sleepy Lagoon (2009), How Slow the Wind – Chair (2001), and In Autumn Sunshine (2009), Yamanaka utilized spatial elements like planes and lines, as well as creative methods including cutting, squeezing and slitting. With these, he emphasizes three-dimensional profoundness and creates a kind of illusion for viewers, offering those invisible space relations a strong visual presence.

About the artist

Born in Tokyo in 1971, Kazuhiro Yamanaka graduated in Interior Design at Musashino Art University, Tokyo (1992-95 BA (Des.)) followed by Royal College of Art in London for Postgraduate studies (1995-97 MA (Des.) RCA). He set up Kazuhiro Yamanaka Office in London after his graduation.

He participates in different aspects of design: from piece furniture design to lighting design, installation and interior design. Current client list includes Pallucco(Italy), Boffi(Italy), Ingo Maurer(Germany), Saazs(France), Alessi(Italy) and museums worldwide. He was awarded Design Report Award 2004 (Milan) as the best young talented designer at the Milano Salone. His creation belongs to a collection of MoMA (New York). He has also realized lighting installations at Victoria & Albert Museum (London), Collette(Paris), designboom, Laforet Museum (Tokyo), Hangaram Design Museum (Seoul) etc.

Kazuhiro Yamanaka has been featured worldwide in the following publications: Abitare, Casa Abitare, Design Diffusion News, Esquire, Domus, Elle Decor, Interni, Intramuros, md, Metropolitan Home, The New York Times, Ottagono, Vogue, Wallpaper. He has also judged at many international design competitions such as HKDA Design Awards 2009 and designboom International Design Competitions. He was appointed as an associate professor at Musashino Art University in Tokyo since 2014.