The Future of Creativity
March 22, 2008
In the past weeks, I have engaged in different dialogues with diverse creative people from all walks of life and disciplines. Whether they be personal conversations or attending exhibitions of inspiration, this is a part of my job for Wieden + Kennedy. From visiting the private downstairs lair of the Undercover Lab of Jun Takahashi in Tokyo, viewing a film of his latest Paris collection versus witnessing the anything but personal spectacle of Tokyo Girls Collection…Tokyo challenges what is fashion. From a lunch with artist James Turrell, the peaceful cattle rancher who paints with nature’s light and owns a volcano as his canvas to hosting at my Studio J, the Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, David Turnley, a daredevil who has captured the dangers of war…I have learned about personal sacrifice. From the glorious and technology inspired exhibition, “Design and the Elastic Mind” at New York’s Museum of Modern Art versus the bad-boy wannabe art at the Whitney Biennial 2008…you experience the art of self-confidence. Standing under Cai Guo-Qiang’s suspended cars in the spiraled space of the Guggenheim Museum, you can feel how China will continue to supply us with artists and ideas to explode our definition of multi-media. His exhibition titled, “I want to believe” inspires me in two ways, his willingness to give optimism a chance and his unwillingness to let others define him. My upcoming blogs will share the inspiration of the above artists. This is a time of wild diversity in creativity and art. We are continuously challenged to build new relationships with our audiences, to connect with ideas never before realized through either manipulation or romance of classic human emotions. My job as a Creative Director has allowed me to continuously redefine what I do by helping others redefine their possibilities. I cannot pretend to make art but what I attempt to do is supremely creative. I build living, breathing creative organisms around the world, a global collective of people mastering unique skills to solve cultural and business problems. For any creative professional, finding inspiration is more than a full-time job, it is a personal responsibility. While what I do may not be art, it is just as rewarding and challenging. It too is about creativity for a changing world
ここ何週間か、僕はあらゆるクリエイティブの人と多くの対話に参加した。個人との会話やインスピレーションの元となる展覧会に行ったりする事を含めてすべてワイデン＋ケネディーでの僕の仕事の一部である。 今、グーゲンハイム美術館でツァイ・グオチャン氏の展覧会が行われている。 今度のブログには上記のアーティストによるインスピレーションに関して書きます。今は極端に幅広いクリエイティビティーとアートの時代である。我々にとってのチャレンジは人間の感情の操作や空想を通して常に観客との新しい関係を作っていく事。クリエイティブ・ディレクターとして僕は他人の可能性を探り、それよって自分の役割も再定義する事が可能である。僕自身アートは作らないが、やる事は実にクリエイティブである。僕は世界中で有機的組織の指揮をしている。すべてカルチャーとビジネス問題を解決するためのユニーク・スキルを持つグローバル的集団である。どんなクリエイティブ・プロフェショナルにとってもそうだけど、インスピレーションを見つけ出す事は仕事の問題ではなく、個人的な責任でもある。 僕のやる事はアートとはいえないが、同じく挑戦的でやりがいのあるクリエイティブな仕事である。
“The work comes first.” Perhaps there is no office today that exemplifies this dynamic more than our 2 year old W+K Shanghai office. Its passionate 24/7 attitude towards great creative solutions makes the China office a unique office of the future. Like W+K Tokyo Lab, our independent music label in Japan, our Shanghai creative office challenges the status-quo of what an agency creates. It recently aired a 30 minute documentary, produced an upcoming television series and introduced a young beat box crew we discovered in China along the border of North Korea to the audience of the influential Music Matters conference in Hong Kong. A documentary of their surprising story is soon to be completed.
「仕事がまず一」 ここにある写真はW＋K上海のCreative Year２年目の本に載っているものである。この限定本は３種類のカバーと、それぞれ違ったコレクターフィギュアも付いている。 W＋K上海は今年で３年目になる。今年は新しい建物に移ってクリエイティビティーと成長する事を祝います。新しい建物の屋上にはルーフトップ・ガーデンもあって今まで通り、世界中のクリエイティブを寄せる場にする予定です。 本当に中国ほどダイナミックな国は今ない・・・だからこそ我々は２年前にクライエントもいない、様々なチャレンジがある状態でオフィスを開く事にした。将来が楽しみだ。
March 22, 2008 11:19 AM |
JOHN C. JAY
John C Jay is Executive Creative Director and Partner of Wieden + Kennedy and lives in Portland Oregon. Jay oversees with Dan Wieden, the global creative work from WK offices in Portland, NYC, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo and Shanghai.
He opened the W+K offices in Tokyo (lived in Japan for 6 years) and Shanghai and works in those offices every month. Jay is also founder and Co-Creative Director for W+K Tokyo Lab, the independent music label. He recently opened Studio J in Portland's Chinatown, his independent creative studio. At Ohio State University, he funded the Jay Scholarship which was started to encourage students of Asian descent to study and plan a career in the Arts. Previous to W+K, he served as Creative Director and Marketing Director in fashion/lifestyle for Bloomingdale's in NYC for 13 years.
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