New Balance to Present “GREY ART MUSEUM 2026” in Nishi-Azabu, Exploring Heritage and Innovation Through the Five Senses

Avex Creator Agency Inc. (head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Shinsuke Kato; hereafter ACA) and New Balance Japan Inc. (head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President and Representative Director: Shinichi Kubota; hereafter New Balance) will hold “GREY ART MUSEUM 2026: Experiencing Heritage and Innovation Through the Five Senses” at WALL_alternative in Nishi-Azabu, Tokyo, from Saturday, May 16 to Saturday, May 30, 2026. The exhibition commemorates New Balance’s “Grey Days,” a celebration of the brand’s heritage and timeless signature color. At the opening presentation held ahead of the event, Natsumi Saita from the New Balance Japan Marketing Department, ACA Representative Director Shinsuke Kato, and five participating creators — Kan Izumi, Kasetsu, Rei Kunimoto, Shinnosuke Tojo, and Motosuke Mandai — joined a talk session about New Balance’s “Grey Days” and the works created for the exhibition. Continuing from last year, the project offers an opportunity to experience New Balance’s philosophy of craftsmanship and the idea of “Grey” through collaboration with art. In 2026, the exhibition begins with the theme “Heritage with Innovation,” reinterpreting Grey from multiple perspectives. Building on last year’s exhibition-based approach, it expands into an experiential presentation open to the five senses, crossing the fields of space, sound, scent, experience, and food. Natsumi Saita explained that the event allows visitors to experience Grey through all five senses. This year’s theme, “Heritage with Innovation,” is expressed through two shoes: the “574,” symbolizing heritage, and the “ABZORB 2000,” symbolizing innovation. The 574 originated as an off-road running shoe in the 1980s and has continued to evolve for more than 30 years. The ABZORB 2000, released in 2025, is a new model that modernly reinterprets New Balance’s long-developed ABZORB cushioning technology. Its design process used VR programming, and the upper features 3D screen printing. Saita said the exhibition was planned to communicate New Balance’s evolving craftsmanship, which preserves traditional manufacturing values while continuing to improve fit and stability across eras. Shinsuke Kato, representative of the art project “MEET YOUR ART” and a partner in this collaboration, said this is the second edition following last year’s event. When he heard the themes of Grey and Heritage with Innovation again this year, he felt their layered nature was highly compatible with artistic expression. This year, ACA is collaborating with five artists who can produce outcomes beyond expectation, and Kato said he finds it stimulating to see Grey and the theme expand richly through artists’ perspectives. He also expressed respect for New Balance’s serious commitment to such a high-context art initiative, and said he hopes the project will help communicate the brand’s philosophy and values more widely and deeply. During the artist talk session, the five artists discussed the works they created for the exhibition. Motosuke Mandai, who handled the venue composition and fixture design, said he interpreted grey as transparency after hearing New Balance’s philosophy of Grey, and worked with blown-glass artisans to create fixtures that attempt a new structural balance. Kan Izumi, who disassembled the “574” and “ABZORB 2000” into parts and translated and reconstructed them as scents, said he approached the shoes through synesthetic and bodily perception, based on the idea that scent contains many kinds of information and that people unconsciously sense color and texture within it. Visitors can take the scent works home as mouillettes. Calligrapher Kasetsu, who created the character “meguru” for the exhibition, said she was inspired by seeing many people wearing New Balance shoes in the city and by the color grey produced from diverse colors, creating grey from the three primary colors. Shinnosuke Tojo, who recalled the silver-white snowy landscapes of Nagano where he grew up when he heard the theme of grey, said he wants visitors to experience real and virtual images, memory and matter, and the illusion and fluctuation of grey. Rei Kunimoto, who created a sound-based installation, said he used the structure of shoelaces as a motif and produced a new work using 574 plates. The venue also develops “Heritage with Innovation” as a food and drink experience. Fuki Noodle Laboratory, founded in 1972, and Wadaman, a sesame specialist with more than 140 years of history, will offer the evolved “GG Noodle” or grey sesame noodle, combining long-established techniques. The exhibition will also serve smoky Kyobancha gelato jointly developed by Kyoto-based tea explorer 7T+ and GREY ART MUSEUM 2026, as well as limited-edition “Heritage with Innovation” original wine from the historic Charman Wine and emerging winery Le milieu, featuring an original GREY ART MUSEUM 2026 label using Kasetsu’s artwork. As an experience menu, SCEN, an alternative label by Olfactive Studio Ne, will offer “drinkable New Balance,” translating the “574” and “ABZORB 2000” into taste, inspired by Kan Izumi’s scent works. Visitors can enjoy an experience that crosses sight, smell, and taste. The space, centered on art and designed to let visitors experience New Balance’s brand legacy through the five senses, will be open from Saturday, May 16 through Saturday, May 30. Exhibition overview: May 16 to May 30, 2026; participating artists: Kan Izumi, Kasetsu, Rei Kunimoto, Shinnosuke Tojo, and Motosuke Mandai; hours: 18:00-24:00; admission: free; venue: WALL_alternative, 4-2-4 Nishi-Azabu 1F, Minato-ku, Tokyo. Workshop programs include “GREY MAKES YOU,” led by Shinnosuke Tojo on Saturday, May 23, from 18:00 to 20:00, a workshop exploring the relationship between grey and color through participants’ own colors; and “Words and Gaze: ‘If One Hears the Way in the Morning’ Through the Character ‘歩,’” led by Kasetsu on Saturday, May 30, from 16:00 to 18:00, a workshop that uses the pictographic character for “walk” as a clue to trace the sensation before the act of walking became the shape of a written character.