This annual forum, hosted by Arts Council Tokyo, sets an important theme for considering the current state of arts and culture, and deepens perspectives and questions through dialogue with a wide range of guests. The latest forum was held on December 17, 2023.
The title this time is "What Art Can Connect in Cities: Thinking from the Shift Change of Creation Sites."
The environment surrounding art and culture has changed dramatically in recent years, including the easing of movement restrictions due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the outbreak of the Israeli-Gaza war, and growing awareness of minorities and the working environment. In the midst of these "shift changes," what issues do the players involved in arts and culture in each country have in mind? This time, we examined these questions based on the stories of two guests involved in international festivals.
The guests include Lee Suk-kyung, director of the Whitworth Museum of Art and curator of the Japan Pavilion at the 60 Venice Biennale, and Yusuke Hashimoto, who has been involved in performing arts in Kyoto for many years and has been head dramaturk of the Berliner Festpiele since 2022. The moderator was Taro Igarashi, an architectural historian and critic.
Writer Junki Sugihara reports on the day of the event, which revealed the reality and challenges of creative sites in various cities, as well as the possibilities and difficulties of people crossing national and regional borders.
Understanding different cultures and revising art history from an international perspective
First of all, Lee and Hashimoto introduced their activities. We then proceeded with a flow of discussion among the three parties, including Mr. Igarashi.
The first speaker, Lee, was born in Seoul. After nearly 10 years as a Senior Curator at the Tate Modern in London, he became Director of the Whitworth Museum in Manchester in 2023. At the same time, he has been involved in many international exhibitions and projects.
"My greatest interest as a curator is in how different cultures interact." Lee said. From that perspective, he talked about the exhibitions he had planned so far and said, "I want to talk about the importance of talking about art and culture from a global perspective and of different cultures understanding their differences and coexisting together."
Many of Lee's exhibitions at Tate Modern reconsider past art history from an international perspective. For example, in the "A View From Tokyo: Between Man and Matter" which has been held since June 2023, the epoch-making international exhibition "The 10 Japan International Art Exhibition" held in Tokyo in 1970 is introduced. Noting that many of the works exhibited at the exhibition were from Tate's collection, we displayed works by Koshimizu Yun, Lee Ufan, Barry Flanagan, Arte Pauvera, and others. "In this way, the global perspective did not come out of nowhere after the 1990s." says Lee.
Nam Jun Paik, who held a large-scale retrospective in 2019, also points out that we should pay attention not only to the media as a pioneer of video art, but also to its internationality, as he was born in Gyeongseong (now Seoul) and interacted with various people while moving to Berlin and New York. In fact, many of his works, such as "TV Buddha" (1974), seem to be influenced by Eastern views of nature and Buddhism, and this is probably related to his experience of the West.
In 2022, the museum held A Year in Art: Australia 1992, which showcased indigenous art in Australia. The year 1992 marked the landmark decision by Australia's Supreme Court, which for the first time granted indigenous people title to pre-colonial lands. Finally, the original native-land relationship in what had previously been described as "new land" was officially recalled. The exhibition will introduce works such as bark painting on tree bark, as well as Richard Bell's Aboriginal Embassy, which combines expression and activism. The latter is an adaptation of a tent-erected Aboriginal rights protest, and Tate also became a forum for discussion.
It's important to note that almost 70% of the exhibits at the Tate Modern are free, as is the case with A Year in Art: Australia 1992. This is intended to make the museum more accessible to all, but the museum, where more than half of its visitors are non-Japanese, says it needs to get to know its visitors well in order to create a multi-faceted, democratic exhibition.
Art is everywhere. to make art more inclusive of citizens,
In 2023, Lee was the artistic director of the 14 Gwangju Biennale, one of Asia's leading international exhibitions, held in South Korea. The theme of the meeting was the phrase "soft and weak like water" taken from Lao-tzu's book "Doto-kyo." There is nothing more flexible or weak than water in this world, but there is nothing better than water in condemning the hard and strong. Lee says he came across this idea during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the lockdown, Lee re-read classic books of thought and literature to explore the roots of her ideas. He said, "I learned to see the world from my own perspective, but not in a self-centered way." and made the fact that his perspective is not universal and that there are many different viewpoints around the world the theme of his international exhibition.
The exhibition begins with the introductory chapter “Encounter, ” and consists of five chapters:“ Luminous Halo, ” which deals with difficulties, resistance, and challenges; “Ancestral Voices, ” which deals with ancestral voices;“ Transient Sovereignty, ” which deals with resistance to colonization and queer bodies; and “Planetary Times, ” which deals with ecology. Distinctive is the breadth and decentering of its participants.
For example, in the “Luminous Halo, ” there will be works created by Eom Jong-soon in collaboration with visually impaired children, and works by Christine Seung Kim, who is deaf herself, projecting American Sign Language movements on the floor. At Ancestral Voices, the Mataaho Collective, a collective of four Maori artists, and Tarek Atwi, a native of Lebanon, presented works using traditional techniques. Korean feminist artist Jang Jia participated in "Transient Sovereignty," and Australian Indigenous artist Judy Watson participated in "Planetary Times." Yuko Mori and others exhibited at Horanggasy Artpolygon, a satellite venue that retains memories of the period under Japanese rule.
Lee's attention to subjects that have traditionally been hidden in art history and his interest in active exchange between different cultures are evident from these artists. At the end of her talk, Lee introduced the "UNIQLO Tate Play: Ei Arakawa's Mega Please Draw Freely and Gutai" held at Turbine Hall in Tate Modern in 2021 as a project to summarize her interests.
This is the artist Dr. Arakawa's reinterpretation of Yoshihara Jiro ’ s “Feel Free to Draw ” (1956) from the postwar Japanese avant-garde group Gata. In Yoshiwara's work, a canvas was placed in a park to encourage people to draw freely, and Arakawa spread it all over the huge hall. We created a situation that embodied Yoshiwara's phrase, "Art is everywhere. Artists can express themselves in many forms." Through these activities, Lee says, "I want to make museums and galleries more places for citizens."
At the end of her presentation, Lee reiterated the importance of "When we look back at the history of art and where we are today, it's important to be specific about where we are, but it's also important to understand the larger context." He said that awareness of that connection is an opportunity to connect art to the larger social context.
The direction of the Berlin Arts Festival, which has a complicated structure
Hashimoto Yusuke was born in Fukuoka. While enrolled in university, he began acting, and after graduating, he established the Hashimoto Production Studio to plan and produce performing arts. In 2010, he launched the Kyoto International Performing Arts Festival (KYOTO EXPERIMENT), recognizing the need for an international platform to connect Kyoto and the world. He also worked at ROHM Theatre Kyoto from 2014.
Hashimoto, who was concerned about the fact that there were only elderly men in the top echelon of the Japanese theater industry and thought that mobility should be increased, stepped down as director of KYOTO EXPERIMENT after 10 years. After that, I wanted to settle down and study, so I stayed in New York from the spring of 2021 under the Agency for Cultural Affairs' Overseas Study Program for Emerging Artists. The decision to visit the United States was prompted by the cancellation of the Aichi Triennale 2019 exhibition, which had become a social issue, and the resulting controversy over the Agency for Cultural Affairs not providing subsidies. Shocked by an opinion poll showing that many people believe that artistic activities should be carried out at their own expense rather than with public funds, Hashimoto conducted research on fundraising in the United States, where many museums and theaters are funded by donations. The results have been compiled in the book Who Supports the Arts: The Ecosystem of American Cultural Policy (Kyoto University of the Arts Center for Performing Arts).
Mr. Hashimoto received a phone call just as his overseas training was ending. The voice is given by Matthias Pace, the new president of the Berlin Art Festival. Mr. Hashimoto was invited to work with the festival and has been working as the festival's head dramaturk since the fall of 2022.
From here, Hashimoto introduced the formation and structure of the Berlin Art Festival. The festival is one of the projects organized by the Bundesanstalt pour culturale (Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin, KBB) in Berlin, which operates five festivals and two cultural facilities. The five festivals include three music festivals in different genres such as jazz, contemporary music and classical music; a theatre festival featuring 10 critically selected performances of the year; and a festival showcasing youth artistic expression. As for cultural facilities, it runs the Gropius Bau and the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, but since the latter, the main venue of the art festival, is relatively empty except from March to November, a new program called "PERFORMING ARTS SEASON" has been implemented for the rest of the year. Hashimoto is playing a leading role in the project.
So how did this art festival start? The festival started in 1951 under the name "Berlin Art Week" with funding from Britain, the US and France. As you can see from this, it was originally an event with a political intention during the Cold War, where the capitalist camp in West Berlin appealed to East Berlin for cultural freedom. This was reflected in the genre offerings, which initially focused on classical music, but later added experimental music and jazz festivals representing American culture.
After the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, art festivals changed drastically, with the former Gropius Bau and Haus der Berliner Festspiele being merged into the Berliner Festspiele in 2001. Logotypes of various festivals can be said to symbolize this unified line. Respecting the history of each festival, the festival will use logos with different designs. There was an aspect of the organization that was moving in a disjointed manner. But that's what Matthias Pace started doing when he took over. As a new policy, the logo design was unified as a symbol of "working together among members in each field."
The new policy also included the active hiring of foreign staff. In this way, Hashimoto, who had no experience working in Germany, was approached.
Labor, generational change, and sustainability: Shifts happening around the world
After explaining the history and organization of the festival, Hashimoto compared Berlin, Tokyo, and the city of Kyoto, where he lived for a long time, showing some numbers.
Kyoto and Berlin are both in the 800 kilometer square meter range and are almost the same size cities. On the other hand, Tokyo's 23 wards are 627 km2, smaller than the other 2 cities, but 9.78 million people live in that area (1.38 million in Kyoto City and 3.5 million in Berlin). The number of theaters, including small live music clubs, is approximately 210 in Kyoto, 400 in Berlin, and 1,200 in Tokyo, almost in proportion to the population. On the other hand, there are fewer parks per capita in Tokyo than in the other 2 cities: 950 in Kyoto, 2,500 in Berlin, and about 4,600 in Tokyo's 23 wards.
After comparing the overall image of the cities, Hashimoto talked about the shift change he felt while working in Berlin from three main perspectives.
One of them is changes in the working environment. These changes include mobile work, flextime, and digitalization, but Hashimoto says that one of the most striking aspects of Berlin is the diversity of the organization. "In Japan, too, diversity is sometimes raised as a theme of expression activities, but in Berlin, it is actively said that diversity should be created in the field itself." says Hashimoto. Many non-German staff work in the facilities and businesses run by KBB, but they can take German language lessons as part of their work. In addition, a working group has been formed among the staff to prevent discrimination, and the staff members themselves invite experts to hold study sessions. There is a momentum to create an anti-discrimination work environment from the bottom up.
The second change is generational change. "There has been a sense of generational and regional shift among performing arts festival directors in recent years." says Hashimoto. For example, young people such as Soma Chiaki served as director of the World Theatre Festival 2023 in Germany and Singaporean Lo Kehong served as director of the Manchester International Festival. In addition, Singaporean Tan Fuquen served as director of BIT Teatergarasjen, the theater that hosts the Bergen International Festival of Arts in Bergen, Norway. At the same time that generations are changing, it is also a recent trend that people from across the region are being appointed to important positions that will shape the direction of the festival.
The last change is about sustainability. In Japan, this term is often used to refer to the environmental impact, but in recent years, in addition to this, the perspective of labor impact, such as the exploitation of motivation, has also been attracting attention. Mr. Hashimoto brings up a new issue called "talent load." "In performing arts festivals, there are many cases in which the director monopolizes a particular artist who is popular or talented, or in which multiple directors concentrate on commissioning a single artist to produce a new work, leaving the artist exhausted and depleted of talent." says Hashimoto. He also points out that this kind of concentration can lead to misunderstandings on the part of artists, leading to various forms of harassment.
Japan lacks a base for nurturing and accumulating people and knowledge.
At the end of the talk, Hashimoto talked about his personal issues, such as the scale of works performed in theaters and the differences in production mechanisms between the West and Japan.
Haus der Berliner Festspiele, where Hashimoto works, is a large theater on the same scale as Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre 's Playhouse in Tokyo. Hashimoto would like to introduce more Asian works, but the works performed at such large theaters tend to be mainly Western. Why does this happen? In Japan's case, large-scale productions are supported by relying on either the domestic media recognition of the performers or licensing from Western production companies (or both), making it difficult to introduce such works in Europe.
"In other words, Japan lacks a base to accumulate all kinds of capital. That capital can be economic or spatial, but what is particularly lacking is human and intellectual capital, that is, bases for nurturing and accumulating people and intelligence. This is also related to the fact that in Japan, theaters are regarded as hako where various programs are performed one after another, and they are not developed as a place to accumulate something."
Mr. Hashimoto said that going to Berlin made him realize the importance of academic study to support such human capital as a person engaged in expression. In recent years, however, the revised National University Corporation Law, which requires some national universities to establish "Management Policy Councils" to determine mid-term goals and budgets, has shaken the autonomy of universities and academics, and the foundations of academics and education are being questioned. Hashimoto stressed the importance of people involved in arts and culture facing politics and voting before engaging in artistic expression. "I think people in the art industry should also participate in society as citizens. In order to do this, we should go out into the streets and meet other citizens, or meet people who are dealing with issues, and raise our voices about what kind of society we want to create. I want to say that before art, you should meet people, you should go to town." he concluded.
Facing other regions and history through the sharing of individual experiences and empathy rather than a big story
This was followed by a discussion by Lee, Hashimoto, and moderator Taro Igarashi.
When Igarashi asked Lee what he wanted to do at the Whitworth Museum in the future, he said, "I want to realize what's important about art, but also make it meaningful to the people who visit it." Lee's vision stems from his doubts about the elitism in the art world, which tends to create small, exclusive communities. "But we don't want to teach people about art." Lee said. "The Whitworth Museum, which has been around for 100 years, has focused on collecting wallpaper and textiles rather than focusing on fine art. Also, in principle, the exhibition is free. Anyone can come in, use the bathroom, come to the cafe, look at the art. I really like that kind of art museum, and I want to make it higher quality." he said of the open art museum.
Igarashi also visited the 14 Gwangju Biennale last year, where Lee served as artistic director. What struck me was that there were very few so-called star artists from the West, and instead many artists from regions unfamiliar to the Japanese were chosen.
When asked about the reason for this, Lee explained that there was an atmosphere of understanding art not only in Western Europe but also in other parts of the world at Tate Modern, where he worked before, and that the theme of this year's art festival was the invisible power of art, so he emphasized a sense of solidarity. With regard to the latter, since Gwangju itself was the setting of the tragic event of the Gwangju Incident, he said that he turned his attention to artists who share the history of oppression and rebelliousness against it, such as countries in the Global South and indigenous peoples. "In that sense, we selected artists in smaller units than countries, such as Gwangju rather than Korea and specific areas in Australia." he commented. He said it was important for artists to share experiences and history like this.
The topic is also today's theme, "shift change." When asked about the significance and stimulation of the experience of working while moving across different cultures, Lee said, "I think the key is inspiration." "The more specific the region, the better, and we want to understand the larger context in understanding it." he says.
For example, Manchester, where the Whitworth Museum is located, was the scene of the Industrial Revolution, where a lot of wealth was accumulated in the upper and middle classes, but also a lot of workers. Was the wealth distributed to those workers, or were they looted? Lee said, "History, which may seem like a story, has many aspects. I'm interested in how artists respond to that history and reinterpret it in a contemporary context, and I think they might have a unique perspective on what the future holds."
When asked what he felt while also living in Berlin, Mr. Hashimoto said, "I felt for the first time, shamefully, how hard it is to live as a foreigner and a minority." based on his experience of difficulties with various procedures and registration. He also pointed out that what impressed him during his training in the United States was the sense of responsibility that not only the medical workers facing the COVID-19 pandemic but also the staff at the PCR testing sites were on the job as individuals. "We don't just need the money because we want to do the project, but we talk about why it should be done, including social needs. I was impressed by the people who went beyond being people involved in art and worked with their own sense of responsibility as citizens." he says.
What are the actual conditions and issues facing diverse workers in Europe?
When people from various places gather to work together, not only positive effects but also difficulties and challenges are seen. When asked by Ms. Igarashi about the duality of such collaborations, Ms. Lee recalled that when she first started working at Tate Modern, she was the first non-European curator and felt that "What a change. I wonder if fields other than contemporary art are moving faster." Since then, however, staff and artists have become more internationalized and are able to share knowledge, so he said that diversity in the working environment itself is important.
On the other hand, after Brexit in 2020, many staff members from continental European countries left, and the shared vision among these diverse staff members became a little weaker. He recalled that this incident made him realize once again the impact of nationalistic movements on art, and the importance of internationalism and collaboration in a form that is not exploitation.
Hashimoto, on the other hand, says that while working in Berlin, "People at the Berlin Arts Festival have an image of being open to diverse expressions, but I feel that the reality is still somewhat lacking." For example, Hashimoto says that in Europe, where there is a strong production system mentioned earlier, people tend to believe that the system is strong and complete, so they tend to see works made in a different way as "undeveloped." "true diversity is only halfway there, and potentially Western-centric perspectives remain" he says.
Mr. Hashimoto also pointed out the negative aspects of introducing the art and culture of the former colonies in the name of "postcolonialism." "For example, a festival director in Portugal sometimes introduces artists from African regions that were colonized in the past as a sign of remorse and respect, but I feel a sense of double colonialism in this." says Hashimoto. I asked whether a structure in which a culture that was originally nurtured within a local community and not intended to be viewed by a large number of people is separated from that and presented as "art," while seemingly "sensible," might lead to the reproduction of the way tourists look at something like a "human zoo."
How do cultural workers deal with violence in the world?
Toward the end of the discussion, the 3 discussed their reactions to Russia's invasion of Ukraine from 2022 and the Israeli-Gaza war from 2023.
Noting that personal choice ultimately matters and that violence on both sides should not be tolerated, Lee said that for many Westerners, the invasion of Ukraine was simpler in that it was NATO versus Russia. He said the situation in Palestine and Israel is more complicated because there are many people involved on both sides.
As a matter of fact, the Whitworth Museum had been preparing a special exhibition called "Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery" since 2019, before the war broke out. The start of the battle led to long weekly discussions at the museum about what to do with the project and what perspectives to include. There are also visitors with various viewpoints. "tried to understand not only the two views of both countries, but also individual perspectives and emotional ties" he said, adding that he emphasized that people have different views beyond political ones.
In Berlin, where Hashimoto works, there was widespread support for Ukrainian artists during the Ukraine crisis, but the Palestinian and Israeli issues are very complex. "Germany, in particular, has a history of the Holocaust, so any statement that is perceived as anti-Semitic is a matter of life and death for cultural figures." says Hashimoto. However, in Germany, where theater and festival directors receive a high level of public attention, there are many opportunities for them to make political statements. Therefore, at the Berlin Art Festival, when making a speech, they discuss with the directors of the festival whether it is okay to express this as the voice of the Berlin Art Festival before finalizing the document. He also said that some people are expressing their positions, which are difficult to express in official documents, through personal statements, social media posts, and actions such as participating in demonstrations.
The discussion between the three parties ended. Afterwards, there were many enthusiastic questions from the audience, such as how Mr. Hashimoto approached Kyoto City and its citizens in organizing KYOTO EXPERIMENT, and the relationship between the increasing number of staff from non-Western countries at art festivals and cultural facilities in Europe and America and the deadlock of Western-centrism.
This forum was held with two guests who are working with various people and issues in changing situations and common sense. From the stories of Lee and Hashimoto, I was able to learn about the current state of the world's creative sites, the real reality of cultural workers, and a glimpse of the possibilities and problems that are emerging there, which is difficult to learn while living in Japan.
Photo by Tanaka Yuichiro
Text by Sugihara Kanki
2023 Arts Council Forum
"What Art Can Connect in the City: Thinking from the Shift Change of the Creation Site"
- Time: Sunday, December 17, 2023 14:00~17:00
- Venue: YAU STUDIO (Tokyo, Chiyoda-ku, Marunouchi 3-1-1 International Building 7F)
- Organized by: Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture Arts Council Tokyo
- Cooperation: Yurakucho Art Urbanism YAU