Image : Sketch of Air Max, Tinker Hatfield, 1986. © Nike, Inc.
Cette actualité est affichée en anglais en attendant que sa traduction soit prête.
Phoenix Art Museum will present "Nike: Form Follows Motion" in its Steele Gallery from April 14 to September 26, 2027. Organized by the Vitra Design Museum, the exhibition surveys five decades of design at the sportswear company, from its beginnings as a small grassroots start-up to its growth into a global brand. Phoenix Art Museum describes its presentation as the show's West Coast premiere, and calls the project the first museum exhibition devoted to Nike's design history.
The exhibition is curated by Glenn Adamson with assistant curator Marcella Hanika. Its exhibition design is by the London architecture and design studio JA Projects, with graphic design by Daniel Streat of Visual Fields. In Phoenix, the presentation is coordinated by Summer Rye and Rebekah Monahan of the museum's fashion department.
At its center is Nike's design lab, where, according to the museum, sports research, scientific study, design experimentation and an interest in form come together. The objects are drawn from the Department of Nike Archives, and the presentation marks the first time material from those archives has been shown publicly. The selection favors rarities and one-offs, among them experimental prototypes for the Waffle trainer, the Air Force 1 and Shox, together with original design studies for footwear and apparel. Well-known models such as the Air Jordan, Air Max, Flyknit and Vaporfly also appear.
The exhibition names several of the designers and collaborators behind this history, including Diane Katz, Tinker Hatfield, Eric Avar, Marc Newson, Comme des Garçons and Virgil Abloh. Material on view ranges from a Flywire prototype of around 2006 to a 1978 poster advertising the Waffle Trainer, as well as a 1986 sketch of the Air Max by Hatfield. A photograph of the runner Steve Prefontaine at the Pac-8 Championships in Eugene in 1973 and a group of objects linked to Frank Rudy, the inventor of Nike's Air technology are also included.
