The latest issues of BT and ArtIt both concern themselves with what Arthur Danto famously described as 'The Art World' (1964). BT has devoted its issue to a detailed analysis and easy to follow guide to the art world as a place of employment and professional career development. In its now familiar 'One-Step Guide To' format, BT interviews artists, gallerists, shop assistants, technicians and a host of other workers, mapping it all out in diagrams and charts. AIT were asked to contribute a section on how we saw the art world functioning in Japan, written by Keisuke and myself. If memory serves me correctly, BT has made several similar issues in the past, and I have also seen various other magazines cover similar territory. Does this interest in the mechanisms of the art world reflect a depressed economic situation, and a strange desire to get back to 'real', labor-related topics? The irony, as anyone who has spent a little time in the Japanese art scene will know, is that there are actually few opportunities in the Japanese art world which offer some semblance of stable employment.
ArtIt has devoted its latest issue to the issue of curating. It remains rather predictably tied to classical museum-centric notions of curating as well as reflecting a very Tokyo-centric view. I was chosen as one of 'Six Young Japanese Curators To Watch', alongside colleagues including Fumihiko Sumitomo, Mizuki Endo and Shihoko Iida. Coincidentally AIT is now organizing a one day symposium on 'Post-Exhibition Curating' practices on Feb 21st, which seeks to question Harald Szeemann's well known definition of the curator as an 'exhibition-maker'. I have invited four curators under forty based in Japan to present papers on non-exhibition practices, including Sumitomo's Oral Archive History Project, Endo's itinerant place-making practices, Shinichi Hanada's community-based projects in Fukuoka and Kyongfa Che's critical re-framings of international exchange projects. I will present a paper titled 'Dance Foors: Energizing People', a theoretical probe linking early disco spaces with histories of expansive art performance and installation. It will be held in Japanese only. It is free and supported by the Ishibashi Foundation. We sent out e-mails 2 days ago, and it is almost fully booked. AIT website
Finally, an apologetic word on the appalling rate of posts - the one excuse I can forward is that I am now in the final stages of my 'Kika' (citizenship change), and thus have been somewhat circumspect in what I post etc. The Ministry of Home Affairs is now reveiwing my application, and I suppose I have been cautious about things generally. If all goes smoothly, I should get a call from them sometime in mid to late February, instructing me to renounce my British citizenship and become Japanese. Although I dont feel particularly nervous, I think that there has been some psychological stress. I had a strange one week dizzy spell from January 1 to 8, which, after seeing the doctor, I concluded must be stress induced. It has now thankfully subsided. In preparation for this change I have also been updating my old UK paper driving licence in order to convert it to a Japanese one. The State is a strange creature - although at the cellular level I straddle both countries, that unique C19th invention/ hallucination - the sovereign nation state - erases the body in favour of Symbol. I must stop before I say too much..
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