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How the Tokyo art scene is handling the pandemic

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<div>During a pandemic, must the show go on? As the world acclimatizes to escalating emergencies, it’s a logical question. But with the Yokohama Triennale one of the first major art events to launch since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic – against a backdrop of historical economic contraction in Japan – the question of ‘must?’ turned into ‘how?’ This and other issues were discussed in Voices from Tokyo, a virtual Art Basel Conversation held on July 29 that gathered together Gallery Side 2 founder Junko Shimada, Mori Art Museum (MAM) Director Mami Kataoka, and collector and patron Koji Nakao.As Japan moved toward declaring a national state of emergency, MAM shut on February 29, starting a five-month closure that ended on July 31 with the opening of the blockbuster exhibition‘STARS: Six Contemporary Artists from Japan to the World’. (The date, Kataoka noted, depended on Japan Airlines resuming flights, so that crates in New York could move.) Originally planned to take place concurrently with the since-cancelled 2020 Tokyo Olympics, ‘STARS’ explores the careers of the artists Yayoi Kusama, Lee Ufan, Tatsuo Miyajima, Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, and Hiroshi Sugimoto, and champions the internationalism of contemporary Japanese art, a curatorial stance that rebuts nationalistic and orientalist framings. (Both Kataoka and Shimada agreed that any reading of an artist’s practice should emanate from its nuances.)Also president of the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM), Katoaka has taken a similarly global approach when considering how museums might respond to the pandemic. In April, the organization published safety guidelines for museums based on the experiences of MAM, National Gallery Singapore, and Hong Kong’s M+ – a reflection of Asia’s head start in experiencing Covid-19’s disorienting waves. Normally, said Katoaka, CIMAM’s board meets three times a year, but in the past months it has been meeting frequently to discuss what the future holds.From the gallery perspective, Side 2 reopened on June 13, with the show ‘Tokyo-Chiang Mai-Tokyo’, featuring works by Udomsak Krisanamis, Thaiwijit Puengkasemsomboon, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. ‘The first people who came into the gallery were artists,’ Shimada recalled. ‘They really craved the experience of looking at artwork in a space.’ Discussions naturally turned to where things could go for the arts, ‘but the fact is nobody really knows,’ she added. While Side 2 received government funding, also allocated to provide immediate relief for artists and those who work in the arts sector, Shimada described how the business had to rely on supporters, with networking becoming integral to survival.In the past few months, the digital sphere has been much discussed as providing a way forward for museums and galleries. Having participated in recent online art fairs, Shimada does not see much difference in the way the gallery works online, given its engagement with collectors through the Internet in pre-Covid times. Collector and patron Nakao, however, has not enjoyed the shift, nor does he find advance appointments for physical visits particularly inviting. ‘But I do not object to this system,’ he clarified. ‘That is what we have to do.’When Nakao recently asked an artist about the future, they were more concerned with crises such as global conflict and the effects of capitalism. ‘It’s an important conversation to have,’ Nakao stated. Endemic issues have been put into sharper relief with the pandemic, but this conversation is unfortunately absent from this year’s Yokohama Triennale,&nbsp;<a href="https://artreview.com/yokohama-triennale-2020-afterglow-review-must-the-show-go-on/" target="_blank">wrote critic Taro Nettleton for ArtReview</a>.In particular, freedom of speech has become the subject for major debate in Japan. Nakao, for example, was director of the Hiroshima Triennale until the end of March this year, stepping down due to what he called censorship. It has been reported that an independent external committee was being established to remove works assessed as problematic from the exhibition, which has since been cancelled due to Covid-19.Regarding his experience of the Hiroshima Triennale, Nakao drew connections to the 2019 Aichi Triennale. That exhibition became the center of a censorship storm when public pressure – including from politicians – not only forced the removal of a display titled After ‘Freedom of Expression?’ because of works representing comfort women from the Second World War and Emperor Hirohito that were deemed offensive, but also prompted a government review of grants for cultural initiatives. That these events brought some of these discussions into the open, he said, is positive, and he hopes that artists in Japan might become more politically engaged.Of course, what defines politically engaged art is broad, but Kataoka offered a recent Chim↑Pom exhibition at Anomaly, Tokyo, as an example (MAM is set to stage a major exhibition of the collective’s work in 2021). ‘May, 2020, Tokyo / A Drunk Pandemic’ showed empty billboards that the collective installed around Tokyo in May, with ‘Tokyo 2020’ scrawled across them, somewhat post-apocalyptically, in white with cyanotype sensitizer. Chim↑Pom, Kataoka pointed out, had been included in the Aichi Triennale. She supposed that Covid-19 might change how the audience engages with artists like them, who are ‘known as political and sometimes problematic.’ When the world is more stable, she said, ‘people feel uncomfortable’ when artists reveal undercurrents in society – but now the world’s problems are visible for all to see.‘I think we need to be socially engaged, or more politically engaged, in a post-Covid society,’ Kataoka continued, seeing an opportunity for the art community ‘to change for the better,’ with sustainability – whether that relates to the environment, financial models, or inclusivity – being the key word. Shimada agreed. To ‘strive together, and to suffer this moment together, to view it not only to make money, is really good.’ Nakao put it this way: ‘Covid may ask us to rethink what is important.’Perhaps Kataoka summed it up at the outset of the discussion, when talking about the impact on museums around the world specifically: ‘That everyone has to start from the beginning is a good thing.’</div>
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	This video is a recording of a talk between&nbsp;the director of the Mori Art Musuem Mami Kataoka, collector Koji Nakao, and gallerist Junko Shimada (<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1372/Gallery-Side-2" target="_blank">Gallery SIDE 2</a>), were in&nbsp;discussion with Stephanie Bailey, Editor-in-Chief, Ocula. It was broadcast on July 29th, 2020.</div>
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In Art Basel's 'Voice from' Zoom series, Museum director Mami Kataoka, collector Koji Nakao, and gallerist Junko Shimada discussed some of the most pressing issues the art community faces in Japan