Prime Minister Koizumi putting art in his new residence

An interesting article appeared in The Japan Times on August 18th about Prime Minister Koizumi's interest in filling his new residence with art. Now that he has won an overwhelming election victory, no doubt the Prime Minister will continue with vigour to choose and place art pieces around his home. As the article points out, the art that he is choosing represents one of the most politically powerful and influential arts sectors in Japan - on (not very good) advice from the Cultural Ministry, Mr. Koizumi visits the annual Japan Fine Arts Exhibition or Nitten to borrows pieces. Rather like the Summer Exhibition at The Royal Academy in London, the Nitten is a membership arts organisation which holds annual salon-type exhibitions in vast museum spaces. Theoretically anyone can enter work, but the judging is done by elderly conservative artists, painting Impresisonist works or sculpting bronze figures. A visit to one of their exhibitions is interesting in that it is like going back in time to the late C19th. Display methodologies are salon-like, pictures hung tightly together and sculptures on plinths lined up next to one another like bowling pins. These large arts organisations invariably have powerful political and regional connections, which ensures that 'winning' works sell for huge sums and end up in public collections around Japan.
What is more, the new National Museum of Art under construction in Roppongi, just across the street from the Mori Museum, will host these huge art group exhibitions in the future. It is remarkable that such arts organisations are supported by the powers that be with massively expensive new museums and spaces, and contemporary spaces such as The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo face dire spending cuts and has had a zero acquisitions budget since 2000.
Perhaps Koizumi should commission artists to paint and sculpt portraits of himself to place around his residence - with all that power, he might need to re-assure himself from time to time that he is truly great...or he could work with curators from around Japan to put together more inspiring mixes of traditional and contemporary arts and crafts on a rotating basis.