Meeting of Japanese Art Specialists
February 2, 2020
Meeting Room 1, Heiseikan, Tokyo National MuseumFebruary 2, 2020: Meeting of Japanese Art Specialists
Purpose: Announcements, discussion and information exchange regarding operational problems faced byJapanese art curators and staff in other related museum departments in North America, Europe and Japan.
Venue: Meeting Room 1, Heiseikan, Tokyo National Museum
Chairman and Facilitator: Kawano Kazutaka, Head of the Research Division, Curatorial
Participants from North America
Laura Allen (Asian Art Museum of San Francisco)
Rosina Buckland (Royal Ontario Museum)Frank Feltens (Freer Gallery of Art)
Andreas Marks (Minneapolis Institute of Art)
Anne Nishimura Morse (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Rhiannon Paget (The Ringling Museum of Art)
Aaron Rio (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Stephen Salel (Honolulu Museum of Art)
Shinoda Yayoi (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art)
Sinéad Vilbar (Cleveland Museum of Art)
Participants from Europe
Karwin Cheung (National Museum of Scotland)
Timothy Clark (The British Museum)
Rupert Faulkner (Victoria and Albert Museum)Menno Fitski (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam)
Gregory Irvine (Victoria and Albert Museum)
Daan Kok (National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden)
Nadejda Maykova (Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography [the Kunstkamera] )Manuela Moscatiello (Musée Cernuschi)
Kate Newnham (Bristol Museum & Art Gallery)
Mary Redfern (Chester Beatty)
Wibke Schrape (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg)
Alban von Stockhausen (Bern Historical Museum)
Khanh Trinh (Museum Rietberg Zürich)
Elizaveta Vaneian (The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts)
Bas Verberk (Museum for East-Asian Arts, Köln)
Cora Würmell (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden)
Ainura Yusupova (The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts)
Participants from Japan
Kajiyama Hiroshi (Nakanoshima Kosetsu Museum of Art)
Furukawa Shoichi (The Museum Yamato Bunkakan)

Yasukouchi Yukie (Suntory Museum of Art)
Ito Chihiro (Eisei Bunko Museum)
Participants from National Institutes for Cultural Heritage
Kawano Kazutaka (Tokyo National Museum)
Imai Atsushi (Tokyo National Museum)
Kito Satomi (Tokyo National Museum)
Kurihara Yuji (Kyoto National Museum)
Tetsuo Furiya (Kyoto National Museum)
Melissa M. Rinne (Kyoto National Museum)Fabienne Helfenberger (Kyoto National Museum)
Mary Lewine (Nara National Museum)Kuwabara Yuzuko (Kyushu National Museum)
Yamanashi Emiko (Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties)Emura Tomoko (Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties)
Maisawa Rei (Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties)
Summary
The Chair explained that the overall purpose of the meeting was not to produce one overarching conclusion
or statement but rather to discuss various problems, build networks, and forge links between participants.
He then asked if anyone had any comments or questions about the previous day’s symposium. With
regards to the keynote speech, participants talked about how interesting they found the idea that the ideal
museum would be one that fused the Tokyo National Museum with the National Museum of Ethnology andthe National Museum of Japanese History. They also agreed that it was not a good thing that Japanese art
was always spoken about in quotation marks and not treated the same as other fields of art. The organizersof the symposium talked about presenting the diversity of Japanese art to the general public and how theconcept of Japanese art differed according to country, region, museum and curator. They added that it wasprobably better to speak about Japanese art within the context of various exchanges rather than as something
restricted to within Japan’s borders. Given this, and following on from the previous year’s theme of “BeyondOrientalism and Occidentalism,” the organizers said they had tried to show how the general public had manydifferent views and ways of approaching ‘Japanese art,’ just as they had many different ways of viewing‘Japan.’ They raised three points that had been discussed at the symposium: (1) The problem of what curators
should exhibit (for example, should they prepare exhibits that visitors want to see or exhibits that challenge
visitors?); (2) how to strike a balance between preserving curatorial integrity and financial success whenstaging exhibitions; (3) how to integrate technology into museum displays.
Participants discussed the phrase ‘Japanese Art’ and how it was better to discuss the ‘Japanese Arts’ inplural given out their museums exhibited fine arts like painting and sculpture alongside applied arts, modernartworks and photography, for example. They also said curators needed a purpose when deciding what toexhibit. They also expressed doubts about the idea of curators passing down explanations to the public in a
one-sided manner. When it came to using technology, participants also said museums should prepare
technology that allows visitors to make their own choices.
With regards to the presentation in the symposium about the Duchamp exhibition, A participant spoke aboutthe approach of using Asian rather than Western artworks. Another also spoke about how Japanese art ispresented nowadays within the context of world art rather than as the product of just one country. There wereintroductions of several innovative ways museums had prepared thematic displays that mixed objects fromtheir collections with cultural artifacts from various countries and regions. However, some participants
expressed concerns that these kinds of activities could threaten the raison d'être of specialists. There wasalso a lively exchange of opinions about educational activities and the importance of approaching children inparticular; the merits of using technology aimed at young people; and the necessity of educating people about
how to appreciate Japanese art.
There were three 5-minute presentations around the break, followed by a discussions about thepresentation themes.
Discussion 1: Japanese Collections for Creativity and Wellbeing
Presenter: Kate Newnham (Visual Arts, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, UK)

Presentation overview
Japanese woodblock prints and graphic art such as manga have become part of popular culture in Westerncountries, a Bristol example being graffiti referencing Hokusai’s work in Hillgrove Street, Bristol by M13 Crew andPhlegm (2009).
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery cares for 2,000 Japanese items including 500 woodblock prints. In 2018-19, we helda series of three free print exhibitions from our collections. We drew on the success of the British Museum’s
Hokusai exhibition (2017) by starting with Hokusai and Hiroshige landscapes. Secondly, we presented life in Edoperiod cities and, thirdly, prints focused on nature and the changing seasons.
The exhibitions were presented in a small gallery, each with 60 prints. Their popularity exceeded our expectations,as they attracted over 127,000 visits: 31% of all visitors to the museum. 2,000 visitors completed an audiencesurvey, which proved that the woodblock prints attracted a younger, more ethnically diverse audience than usualand also drew in visitors from a wider geographical area.
Visitors were very inspired by the prints and the techniques used to create them.
“Beautiful, dreamy, ethereal, thank you.”“Been thinking about doing some wood cut printing and it’s been inspiring to see how the process has been
completed.”
We have anecdotal evidence that the prints prompted visitors ranging from school students to staff at a local digital
games company (Meteor Pixel) to create their own work.
In a project with poetry consultancy Call of the Page we encouraged people to write haiku responding to the online
versions of our exhibitions. Poets from 30 countries submitted 800 haiku based on Bristol’s prints.
Public events such as a family activity day and an ‘Ultra-Japan’ evening for adults celebrating both traditional andcontemporary aspects of Japanese culture drew capacity audiences. Adults as well as children were keen to play,for example by trying on anime costumes and kimono.
Visitor responses to Bristol’s program suggest that Japanese collections have a powerful potential for stimulating
creativity, social visits and good mental health. This seems to be due to a number of factors. People respond tothe high levels of craftsmanship in Japanese art, its links with popular culture and what it reveals about Japanese
faiths and beliefs, especially Buddhism. Finally as it has done in the past, Japanese art gives Western viewers theopportunity to enter a different world.

After the presentation, an intriguing research outcome recently featured in the British Medical Journal wasintroduced by the presenter: people over fifty who go to museums and art galleries have a lower risk ofpremature death. The presenter added that her own medical doctor actually goes to galleries to see Japanese
art in pursuit of healing. A participant pointed out that there are art-related programs designed to comfort
former servicepersons.
Presentation 2: Sustainability and Curation
Presenter: Menno Fitski (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam):Presentation overview
This presentation discussed how curators can contribute to sustainability during their everyday work. Mr.
Fitski talked about the problem of air conditioning in exhibition rooms. He also questioned the frequent useof airplanes to dispatch couriers, for example, and he even questioned the idea of lending itself, suggesting
instead that museums could perhaps utilize their own collections more. He also made several proposals
about: sharing collections; re-using display cases and tools; undertaking joint enterprises though the use ofonline platforms; and constructing a database of collections. Furthermore, he gave several examples where
it would be difficult to act in an environmentally responsible manner, noting how air travel was sometimes
unavoidable for geographical and climate-related reasons, for instance, and how it was unfeasible to cut backon the use of air conditioning. Mr. Fitski also expressed the opinion that we needed to change the way wethink about marketing exhibitions. He expressed concerns about this generation’s over-use of fragile
Japanese artworks, for example, and he questioned the practice of trying to attract visitors by constantly
holding exhibitions of famous works loaned from other museums. He said museums needed to think more
about how to tackle the issue of sustainability and he called for an ongoing debate between specialists inJapanese art with regards to what could be done and what should be done.
Presentation 3: The Courier Challenges Facing Small Museums and Galleries
Presenter: Shoichi Furukawa (Yamato Bunkakan):
Presentation overview
For small museums and art galleries like Mr. Furukawa’s Yamato Bunkakan, despite an understanding thatcourier work is essential for the safe transportation of objects, there is resistance to the idea, for the threemain reasons outlined below:① There is uncertainty about procedures (import/export and CITES)② There is apprehension that springs from a lack of experience③ There is resistance to the idea of sending curators overseas to act as couriers for a time, as this will
increase the day-to-day workload of curators who stay behind
Small museums want to cooperate as much as possible with loan requests from overseas museums and art
galleries, but the courier issue often proves an impediment. One way to solve this would be for the National
Museums and the Agency for Cultural Affairs to loan works and carry out procedures on behalf of smaller
museums. However, if a loan request is not made directly made to the National Museums or the Agency for
Cultural Affairs, the staff at these institutions cannot realistically be expected to cooperate when they are busy,
so we need to think about how to reduce workloads.
Therefore, when planning exhibitions featuring objects borrowed from within Japan, it helps to consider

various factors during the planning or conception phase, such as whether the National Museums or theAgency for Cultural Affairs will play a coordinating role, for example, or whether this role will fall to smaller
museums, with the lending museums providing couriers. A further factor to consider is the relations between
lending museums within Japan (building an environment where curators in charge at each museum canconsult each other freely). If these factors are considered and preparations made accordingly, this will
facilitate lending by smaller museums who otherwise have little experience when it comes to couriers. At theend of the day, the main responsibility lies with the museums holding (planning) the exhibitions. For them,
the key to a successful exhibition lies in building friendly relations with the people in charge at each institution
through dialogue and the detailed exchange of information.
After the presentation, a participant said many find it hard to understand immediately why these cooperativerelations were so important, but over time they gradually came to realize how important connections in Japanare when lending or borrowing objects. It was also pointed out that it might be more efficient from an
operational perspective to gather objects from the various owners together in one place before dispatchingthem overseas, noting that this would also be a good idea from a sustainability standpoint. There was noreason under the museum system why couriers had to be curators. They said that the practice in Japan ofalways holding exhibitions of famous works was leading to more loans from overseas, adding that it would
be advisable to eliminate the paper work involved in loaning works.
This was followed by a progress report on a database for Japanese art. There was also an explanation
about how to use and register with the International Network for Japanese Art (INJA).