Art you want to walk in: ‘Future Now’ lands at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts

Editor’s Note: All photographs were taken by Fran Dwight.

KALAMAZOO, MI — “Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks” is the first museum exhibit where one might have a strong desire to try on a display item and walk around a bit just to experience what it feels like.

The silver pieces that are barely recognizable as shoes, a 2013 fashion/architecture collaboration by Rem D. Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid, the Zaha Novas? It’s not clear where your feet go? One would have to have it together to pull that off, as well as a clear feel of one’s center of gravity to stay upright.

The Big Red Boots, by Brooklyn art collective MSCHF, are designed in the style of the rocket boots of the retro anime character Astro Boy. Those would’ve been great to wear outside this winter. Maybe ’70s-’80s kids who had Moon Boots know the feeling.

How about you turn heads with pink cartoon octopi engulfing your feet? Mr. Bailey’s (designer Daniel Bailey) Octopus looks comfy, unless you have a tentacle phobia.

But there, the show’s wall of Converse. Comfort, utility, and a simple choice of red, blue, purple, pink, orange, all show that you have flash but aren’t trying too hard.

Running from now to June 7 at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, “‘Future Now’ represents an exciting and slightly new direction for us,” museum Executive Director Michelle Hargrave says at the exhibit preview Friday. “It’s an exhibition that sits at the intersection of art, design, technology, culture, and everyday life.”

The show includes over 60 designs, from brands and designers familiar to obscure. “Future Now” is a collaboration of the American Federation of Arts and the Bata Shoe Museum of Toronto.

Shoes are not something expected in an art museum, but they are art. They are reflections of cultures, and as art, they can trigger thought and discussion.

For example, fast fashion and its waste are addressed by UltraBoost Uncaged for the Oceans, a pair of adidas that uses discarded fishing nets. Or, the PALIMPEST Sneaker 001 that is constructed of material from discarded shoes.

Kicks have long been a part of urban culture and fashion, but not often manufactured and sold by the community that is its most devoted customers. JEMS, by Pensole, the first Black-owned athletic footwear company, shows on its soles the image of Jan Ernst Matzliger, the Black inventor who developed manufacturing in the 1880s that transformed the industry.

Pauline Forlenza, Director and CEO of the American Federation of Arts, was also on hand for the opening. She was last in Kalamazoo in 2019 with “Black Refractions.” 

“While grappling with the complex history of footwear design and mass production, ‘Future Now’ gives us a glimpse into the future of the industry and how designers have worked to incorporate both style and sustainability into their creations,” Forlenza says.

Also on exhibit are examples of shoe history, going back to when Goodyear glued its rubber product onto canvas shoes to make the first sneakers in the 1890s.

From there, the show takes us into the future of footwear, back to 1989 and Marty McFly’s auto-lace Nikes in “Back to the Future II,” to current virtual shoes made specifically for virtual reality.

“Footwear is something that all of us engage with every day. It’s personal, functional, expressive, and deeply tied to identity, creativity, culture, and innovation. And by exploring shoes as objects of design, creativity, and experimentation, this exhibition opens up big ideas through something familiar and accessible,” Hargrave says.

With “Future Now,” the KIA hopes to engage “students, families, artists, designers, gamers, speaker enthusiasts, and people who may be walking into an art museum for the very first time. They remind us that creativity isn’t limited to one medium or tradition, and that innovation can take many forms,” she says.