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Kinetic Aesthetic: How sunrise sculpture came to Saks’ flfth floor

Landing a coveted spot on the fifth floor of Saks Fifth Avenue is coup enough for a designer, but for an artist it is practically impossible. Yet there was Nobuhiro Nakanishi, a Japanese sculptor who had never before shown in the United States, beholding his expansive piece, a mesmerizing 3-D sunrise installed right outside Phillip Lim’s front-row boutique, as friends and colleagues toasted them with prosecco, courtesy the store and W magazine.

The artwork was Lim’s idea. To complement his new collection of structured summerwear, the designer said, he’d wanted a piece that evokes the theme of kites, something that would “bring the inside outside.” A bit of a collector himself—he cites a Jim Hodges as a recent purchase—he turned to the web, where he came across Nakanishi’s “layered landscapes,” composed of images of natural phenomena that are photographed over time, laser-printed onto transparent panels, and hung in sequential rows. Lim commissioned a 27-panel piece for a prominent setting right in the entrance to the fifth-floor collections; more of Nakanishi’s mysterious hangings accompany Lim’s garments in the Fifth Avenue windows. They’re kind of like poetry in motion—call it the kinetic sublime.

Just like any beautiful sunrise, though, their appearance is fleeting—just until next week. 

Photo: Billy Farrell Agency.