Presentation 3

What Does “New Normal” Mean to Art Museums? --Renewal Opening of Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Artand Online Activities under the Pandemic
Mr. Tsuchiya Takahide
Director of Exhibitions and Programs, Project Management Office,Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, Japan
ProfileTsuchiya Takahide is Director of Exhibitions and Programs at Kyoto City
KYOCERA Museum of Art’s Project Management Office. He graduated from theSchool of Economics at Kwansei Gakuin University. After working in thepublishing industry, he obtained an MA in Arts Management at Carnegie Mellon
University. He then worked at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and theJapan Society, New York before assuming a position at Mori Building Co., Ltd.
(Mori Art Museum Project Office). In addition to organizing exhibitions and their
Photo: Shinichiro Mikuriya

accompanying programs at Mori Museum, he has managed Various aspects ofmuseum management, including international exchange programs and annual art festival, ”Roppongi
Art Night.” He assumed his current position in 2018. He is also a part-time lecturer at Keio University.
Presentation
Now in its 89th year, Kyoto City
KYOCERA Museum of Art originally openedin 1933 (Showa 8) as the Kyoto EnthronementMemorial Museum of Art. The ‘Kyoto
Municipal Museum of Art Future Plan’ wasformulated

duringtheMuseum’sanniversary.

Themuseum

then80th
closedtemporarily for repairs and expansion. Namingrights

wereofferedtosupport

theredevelopment, with work finally finished in2019 and the museum reopening as Kyoto CityFig.1 Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art(Photo: Koroda Takeru)

KYOCERA Museum of Art in May 2020 (Fig. 1).
As COVID-19 began to sweep the globe early in 2020, our museum faced numerous challenges. We
had to introduce a reservation system to ensure everyone’s safety, for example, and had to devise ways

to stage exhibitions and related activities under conditions that made large gatherings difficult. Before
our museum reopened (before the pandemic), our activities were geared towards people visiting inperson, with our online activities mainly limited to pre-event notifications/promotions and post-event
archiving. Under unprecedented pandemic conditions, though, people could no longer visit in-person
and it became necessary to shift art appreciation online. We never imagined that the so-called ‘Museumat Home’ concept would become so vital.
In our case, our inaugural exhibition after reopening was HIROSHI SUGIMOTO – POST VITAM.
As part of this, we filmed a conversation between the artist Hiroshi Sugimoto and the critic Akira Asadathat took place without an audience. This was then posted on a video-streaming site and it has since beenviewed more than 13,000 times. We also thought about creating a guided-tour video or a virtual tour
with 360-degree views of the exhibition galleries, but these ideas were shelved, partly because Mr.
Sugimoto wanted people to visit the exhibition in person. As part of the following year’s
Bubbles/Debris: Art of the Heisei Period exhibition, we broadcast a five-hour live talk between
participating artists in Kyoto and Tokyo that was watched by over 500 people. We also posted videos ofinterviews with artists from the exhibition. Over the next few months, these 15 videos in total wereviewed over 10,000 times, a sure sign of the potential and reach of online activities. We also posted avideo of a lecture by the exhibition’s supervisor, Noi Sawaragi (more than 4,300 views). With theexhibition Modern Architecture in Kyoto, held the same year, we streamed a series of ten talks filmed inconjunction with a local group of urban walkers.

Fig.2 A new section, “Programs available online” was created on the museum website. Viewers
areguided to each of the subsections (such as collections, learning, videos, and publications) from themain portal page.
（Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art website [smartphone edition])

All these experiences finally led us to set up our website’s ‘Programs Available Online’ section (Fig.
2). Knowing it would be impossible to fully recreate the experience of visiting the museum, we avoided
names like ‘Online Museum’ or ‘Virtual Museum.’ This section’s main page links to subsections entitled‘How to Use,’ ‘Collection,’ ‘Learning,’‘Videosand

Live

Streaming’and‘Publications.’ These provide information
about our collection or downloadable
worksheets, for instance. We have also
streamed an explanatory video about
Japanese painting accompanied by alecture (a joint production with Kyoto City
University of Arts).
In 2020, ICOM conducted a survey
entitled Museums, Museum Professionals
and COVID-19. This looked at how
museumactivity

waschanging

Fig.3 Digital activities and communication

asmuseums adopted to the ‘new normal’ oflife under pandemic conditions. The survey
pointed to a lack of funds or specialized
staff when it came to digital activity.
Though digital services had increased in thewake of lockdowns, the survey noted thathigh hurdles remained, with live activities
still rare, for example (Fig. 4).
Giventhisprognosis,

severalchallenges spring to mind. Firstly, we needto conduct surveys and analyze data about
viewer attributes and satisfaction levels, forexample. Furthermore, we need to strike abalance between ‘online’ and ‘real’ while

Fig.4 Changes in digital services

designing content that is striking and unique enough not to get buried under the avalanche of online
educational and entertainment-related content. When producing content, we also need to secure humanresources with skills in the areas of text writing, video production, and talking, etc. Alliances withexternal specialists will be needed to attain some of these ‘skills.’ At the same time, though, withworkloads expanding, we may need to reconsider what kind of things are required from ‘curators’(known here as kakugei-in) in Japan. We will also need to secure budgets and raise funds to pay forthese ‘alliances’ and for in-house human resource development. All this prompts the question of what
museums should aim for in an age when large gatherings are difficult. Assuming the introduction ofdigital technology will continue in the post-pandemic environment, this question will involve reexamining the essence of the ‘museum experience’ from a long-term perspective. Ultimately, it will also
involve thinking about the issue of ‘sustainability.’

There are many merits to online activity. It can provide a museum experience that transcends thestrictures of time and space, for example, while also promoting diversity by attaching sign language or
foreign-language subtitles to videos. Furthermore, if online programs run concurrently with actualexhibitions and events, rather than appearing afterwards in ‘catch-up’ format, then perhaps the ‘newnormal’ will see online programs serving as ‘secondary exhibition galleries’ that complement andenhance museum activities. In this sense, ‘online’ and ‘real’ experiences would complement each other,rather than the former replacing the latter. Art appreciation is meant to rouse the emotions. If the user
merely consumes information without experiencing these emotions, the essence of the museum
experience will be lost.
As they embrace technology amid a backdrop of COVID-19 and technological innovation, museums
are part of a broader social trend. In terms of the future, all these activities being undertaken by museums
are probably just the start of a major transition. The museum experience involves encounters withprimary materials like artworks and documents. For now, we will need to continue discussing andstumbling toward a ‘new normal’ that enhances this experience while striking a balance between ‘real’and ‘online.’
Fig.3 source: ICOM (International Council of Museums), Museums, museum professionals and
COVID-19, 2020, p. 9Fig.4 source: ICOM (International Council of Museums), Museums, museum professionals and
COVID-19, 2020, p. 10(https://icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Report-Museums-and-COVID-19.pdf ）