It is raining today. The rainy season was the shortest on record this year, and records of heat were broken in the last weeks… but suddenly, a rarity for the season, a rainy front opened. After a studious morning, departure for Shibuya (and one more stamp). The rain has stopped. We walked in a section that we had not seen yet. The goal: to eventually get to the Louis Vuitton store, not to buy bags or other luxury goods, but to go to the Louis Vuitton space in the Louis Vuitton foundation. The American artist Rashid Johnson exhibits a work entitled “Plateaus”.
We enter the store, pass the temperature check and pass our hands to the alcohol offered by the host. Note that we do these two things when we enter a lot of places, I don’t even mention it, because it has become a habit. We are immediately assumed to be there for the art and are shown the way to the elevator. We go up to the sixth floor. A lady welcomes us and explains that we are allowed to take pictures, but not to touch. In front of us is a kind of big shelf with tropical plants, shea butter sculptures, books (almost always the same). Rashid Johnson explains (in writing, and then in a video interview) that this is an ethnographic sculpture that brings out elements that are important to his family: Africa, the United States, politics, philosophy… It’s very interesting. From the space, the view on Omotesando is impressive.
We then walked around Omotesando a bit more, and took the subway at rush hour to go back home.
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