Mami Kataoka

Conversation
with Mami
Kataoka
Director of Mori Art
Museum

Mami Kataoka was appointed Director
of Mori Art Museum in 2020. She was
formally Chief Curator at Tokyo Opera
City Art Gallery (1997-2002) and Mori
Art Museum (2003-2020).
She was International Curator at the
Hayward Gallery, London (2007-2009);
Co-Artistic Director of the 9th Gwangju
Biennale, South Korea (2012); Artistic
Director of the 21st Biennale of Sydney
(2018); and Artistic Director of the Aichi
Triennale 2022. She has been serving as
a Board Member of CIMAM
International Committee for Museums
and Collections of Modern Art and is
currently the President of CIMAM
2020-2022.
Other roles include Chair of
Contemporary Art Committee Japan,
Art Platform Japan [Initiative by the

Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan];
Councilor of Tokyo Council for the Arts
[Initiative by Tokyo Metropolis, Japan];
and Member of AICA [International
Association of Art Critics].
Visiting Professor at Kyoto University of
the Arts Graduate School and Tokyo
University of the Arts (Faculty of Fine
Arts, Graduate School of Fine Arts)
Kataoka frequently writes, lectures, and
juries on contemporary art from Japan,
Asia and beyond.

Keith Whittle (KW): Thank you for agreeing to meet. I
know you are incredibly busy. To begin with could you
briefly outline your professional background and current
role at Mori Art Museum?
Mami Kataoka (MK): I began my career not as a curator
but as a researcher. I worked for a firm called The NLI
Research Institute. They are the research institute for
Japan’s largest insurance company who make investments
in real estate and financing. As part of the real estate
growth in 80s and the 90s, the time of Japans bubble
economy, many arts and cultural projects were taking
shape, not only in the public sphere but also private
sectors as well.
NLI was undertaking consultation for proposed cultural
facilities or cultural complexes for its operation and
management model, as well as the fundamental concept
of the new institutions. One of my projects, which I began
work on in ’92 was the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery,
which eventually opened in ‘99. The Tokyo Opera City
complex itself opened in ’96, so when I started consulting
on the project, there were intense discussions as to what
kind of art gallery the developers wanted to have.
Overall, I worked on that project for 11 years, including
seven years of pre-opening preparation, consultation and
researching on what would be the ideal for that
institution. At the beginning I wasn’t going to be a curator
for that institution, but maybe I was too committed and
started to have a strong and clear vision for a new

contemporary art space in Tokyo at that specific moment,
and eventually I couldn’t let it go.
KW: Globalisation and multiculturalism since the 90s
have created an unprecedented interest in contemporary
Japanese art in the international world. The new images
of contemporary Japanese culture have been widely
disseminated with the introduction of new terms such as
“Cool Japan”, kawaii, anime and otaku, and artists who
reflected these new images, such as Nara Yoshitomo and
Murakami Takashi, have become internationally known.
Meanwhile, young artists who were born after the 1970s
have been turning away from these images and
concentrating on smaller, fragmented, fragile, floating
expressions that connect their works in an extremely
loose manner.
MK: Yes, at that time the international art scene was
becoming more globalized, and the growing emergence of
Asian Art were becoming visible in the 90s. Particularly,
the first half of 90s, was a threshold of young galleries
such as Tomio Koyama Gallery and his contemporaries
who emerged around the same time. So I had this clear
vision for what would later become Tokyo Opera City Art
Gallery, one functioning as something inbetween
established museums and new commercial galleries. And,
I had explored models such as Kunsthalle, or alternative
spaces. I wanted the new space to be something closer to
those functions, but one with access to a larger public.
KW: The inaugural exhibition at Tokyo Opera City Art
Gallery was “Releasing Senses”, in 1999. And since 2003,

you have worked for Mori Art Museum. I wonder if you
could talk a little about your interests and the museum’s
focus on the Asian contemporary art. And what yourself
have described as a “rediscovering the inter-connection in
between the histories, cultures and religions throughout
Asia”.
MK: Mori Art Museum’s focus on Asia, stems from a
specific strategy or vision, to be one of the hubs of
contemporary art within Asia, or in the larger Asia Pacific
region. From starting at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery
curatorial practice is not really about my personal taste or
interests. It has been more about how we position
ourselves in a larger context and how contemporary art
could find its role in the society and its history. For
instance “Releasing Senses,” the inaugural exhibition, at
Tokyo Opera City Gallery, was an attempt to understand
art through sensory ways not limited to the visual sense.
Which is a little opposite of a conceptually driven or
political social way of understanding art, but which is I
still believe, very important, particularly for Japanese and
Asian perception of everyday surroundings.
The similar issue appeared again in “Sensing Nature” in
2010 at Mori Art Museum. It was a meaningful exhibition
to reconsider Japanese perception of Nature through the
form of installation media. I think that answers some of
your later questions, representation of stylistic
understanding of Japanese art, Cool Japan or Kawaii,
those kind of clichés. Very often Japanese Art has been
represented and interpreted, is a very particular one in
the last 15 to 20 years. But it is a time to have an

alternative view for this. Curators such as David Elliot has
been critically aware of this particularism. His thoughts
were well presented in the show he curated “Bye Kitty!!!
Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art”
at Japan Society in 2011
KW: A counterpoint to Murakami’s “Superflat” exhibition
at the Japan Society in ’95
MK: Yes. The exhibition also shows another way of
articulating Japanese Art. Yet, I am recently more
interested in articulating, Japanese Art or Asian Art from
the perspective of non-form, impermanent and invisible
presence. It’s more non-logical, irrational side, of the
universe. And if we are looking at that part, I think it
becomes clearer as to why Western culture, and the
Western world has shaped so much of the world we now
know since the European Enlightenment, which is
rational and scientific, therefore easier to be shared. But
the non-logical, irrational, is still very much a larger part
of the way of living and understanding the whole function
of the universe and in a way Eastern culture or premodern
understanding, we still share so much of that
realm.
Particularly after modernisation and Modernism,
something spiritual has become something outside of the
normal artistic discourse – if we look at it in terms of
Japanese spiritual beliefs, as say manifested through as
Shintoism, then we are not as such talking about religion
in the Western sense of the that term. it’s more about
sensory understanding rather than being religious. If we

may say that our brain is composed of two parts, one part
is logical, to communicate with other people to share the
same understanding, and the other the sensory part, is
very difficult to describe or share. But more and more I
think a sensory understanding is as important as the
logical part and we need to be aware of that. So “Sensing
Nature” was about that idea of perception in Japan and I
suggested its stronger influence or connection to the idea
of Mono-ha or a number of the performative practices of
the 50s and 60s. Furthermore, “Phantoms of Asia,” which
I guest curated for Asian Art Museum in San Francisco in
2012, is about exploring that vision, more inline with Pan-
Asian artists.
So this exhibition was to develop my intuitive theory
further, taking Asian cosmology and spirituality, and
looking at how those ways of understanding the whole
universe, or how this world was created, and issues
around that perspective. I am not suggesting for us to go
back to pre modern era, yet we cannot deny how
behavior or ways of living are informed and understood
by such a perception even in our contemporary time. I
want to encourage people to see art not solely from a
strong conceptual, political, or social point of view, all of
which are of course very important, but equally, to think
of the relevance and to understand contemporary art
from a sensory perspective.
KW: Looking into place making & public art, one can be
aware that its current mutations are intimately related to
the process of globalisation and restructuring of local
culture. If urbanisation is the most spectacular aspect of

this restructuring process, contemporary art plays an
essential role in the formation of these re-invented
localities. Contemporary Art itself has also undergone
some fundamental changes over the last three decades,
with cultural projects playing an increasingly important
role in urban regeneration projects from the mid-80s.
Minoru Mori, the founder of the Mori Art Museum and
developer behind Roppongi Hills, which opened in 2003,
is a property developer whose interest is not primarily art
but town planning and revitalising urban areas.
The success of his 1986 Ark Hills which comprises a
concert hall, exhibition spaces and eating areas, led to it
becoming a nationwide model copied by municipalities
and encouraged Mori’s vision and creation of the
Roppongi Hills area. An hardware and software approach
to arts and culture. On the other handprojects such as the
Echigo-Tsumari Triennial, amongst others in Japan,
appear more focused on utilising the capacity of arts
activity to support community-led renewal. This
particular festival seems reasonably successful in
attracting tourism to the region, and, according to one of
the initiators, plays a role in ‘revitalising elderly people
who have lost their hope, identity and vision of the future.
Similarly projects such as the recent Beppu Project NPO,
aim to renew a sense of citizenship through cultural
activity, art with a social purpose working with people as
their principle ‘asset’. MK:
First of all, I want to separate the act of art making by the
artists from that which people like entrepreneurs or the
public governments, cooperate entities are involved in

because the purpose is very different. Often those people
ask artists to come in and do something. But the essential
part of their artistic production is very different, as they
are doing it for other purposes, that are fundamentally
different. They ‘use’ art as a means for other purposes.
Secondly, the Echigo-Tsumari Triennale directed by Fram
Kitagawa is now sponsored by Mr. Fukutake, of Benesse
Corporation, who established and funded his own major
art related project.
KW: Benesse Art Site Naoshima, Seto Inland Sea
MK: Yes, Naoshima. And he also started the Setouchi
Triennale (Setouchi International Art Festival) in 2010. So
the interesting part is, those two individuals, and also Mr.
Mori, are all owners of private companies. The late
Minoru Mori and Mr. Fukutake both private
philanthropists, such individuals like them have always
played significant roles in development of the Japanese
art scene. Including Mr. Hara of Hara Art Musuem. There
was also a Japanese ICA, in Nagoya in the 90s, Mr. Takagi,
who was a gallery owner as well as a private
philanthropist, was responsible for establishing that.
What could possibly link or be common between Echigo
and Mori Art museum, is that, it is part of the
regeneration of localities. Difference is that one is
happening in urban-space, while the other is in regional
space. Yet, interestingly, they both have a sense of
spectacles, as Mori Art Museum has incoporated the view
of the metropolis from 52-53 rd floor while Echigo-Tsumari
(and Setouchi) makes contemporary art spectacle in the

beautiful regional landscape. So, for the art audience,
both experiences could be spectacle. In the meantime
Tokyo has so many other artistic and creative activities in
the city, while art in Echigo-Tsumari or Setouchi becomes
something extraordinary and could be outstanding from
everyday life. The other thing is that the Museum is
opening its door as a part of daily life, while Echigo-
Tsumari and Setouchi are happening on more
concentrated time.
KW: So it is akin to say a festive experience, one as much
about place as the Art itself and its timing, like the
traditional Japanese summer festival?
MW: Yes, and Mori Art Museum or any museum in an
urban place has to function in a very ordinary way, a daily
place and within daily time. To find a place for artistic
experience in urban life style was one of the goal that Mr.
and Mrs. Mori was hoping the museum to contribute.
KW: During your presentation last year at Daiwa Anglo-
Japanese Foundation you talked about those people who
have been instrumental in supporting the arts through
the financing of projects. And you also talked at that
presentation about private collectors who had made their
collections available. In Japan, where the market,
collectors, audience – everything, in fact – is small in scale,
even Tokyo, which is widely held to be the epicentre of
the Japanese art world, cannot hold a candle to the art
scenes of New York or London. The majority of Japanese
collectors have often bought Western rather than
Japanese art and Tokyo, which was at the forefront of the

Asian art world only a short time ago, is now completely
overshadowed by the dynamism of its rapidly expanding
neighbor, China. In fact, even during the boom times of
the 1980s, Tokyo did not witness the steady stream of
gallery launches funded by Europeans or Americans that
are taking place in Beijing or Shanghai now.
KW: Having recently been appointed as one of the Joint
Artistic Directors of the 9th Gwangju Biennale 2012, and
having worked with such prominent Chinese artists’ such
as Ai Weiwei, then I wonder if you could tell me what you
see as the reasons why Chinese contemporary art has
taken centre stage on the international art market, and as
such played a major role in defining the ‘contemporary’
and why China has such powerful and extremely vibrant
and internationally recognised cutting edge arts scene?
MK: Contemporary art is always a reflection of society.
Artistic creation comes out from experience. If artists are
living in a society going through radical or rapid change
both, economically and sociologically, it is very natural to
see them reflected in the contemporary art works from
that region. So it is only natural that the world is looking
at China not solely because of their artistic quality but
more for their social economical changes. Also, Chinese
people are becoming more affluent, with increasing
amounts of money to spend, and Chinese Art is a
representation of the polarisation of the people’s lives. We
could look at the fact that Chinese market is mostly
supported by Chinese people. In fact, there are several
significant Japanese collectors who supports Japanese
contemporary art. Even in Japanese art, you could

probably look at the art produced right after the war,
throughout 50s and 60s. People were reacting to the
social changes taking place at that time, because that was
a really important time for Japan following the loss of the
Second World War.
How to find themselves again from nothing. Artists
including Taro Okamoto, or many artists from that period,
were reflecting the loss of the war, to the industrialisation
of the society. Also, some of the artists called their works
“reportage painting”. They were also touching upon issues
of American militarism, the bases that were being
established in Tokyo or Okinawa after 1951 US-Japan
Security Treaty. Those artists were very aware of and
commented on the social changes taking place. Our
generation was not really educated with a strong sense of
history, particularly about modernization. After the war, I
believe our parent’s generation wanted to just look to the
future, and the government propagated, promoted and
legislated in support of such a perspective, one focused
on looking to the future, not looking back. Too forget
about the loss of the war. After the war the teaching
Shintoistic myths about the creation of the Japanese
world was removed from schooling, whereas my parent’s
generation all were schooled and knew of that previous
approach to our understanding of Japan, it’s history and
relationship to Asia and wider-world.
So the post-war generation weren’t really taught such
during our schooling, our concept or perception
becoming totally Americanised. That influenced so much
of my generations own consciousness. Now Japanese

people are finally trying to re-discover, to find out where
and who we are, to explore what was, what has become.
Furthermore at the beginning of the Meiji Era, Kakuzo
Okakura, a very young but important figure in the
establishment of Tokyo Geidai, and others were
instrumental in establishing ideas around cultural
nationalism. How they could establish their own style
within Japanese tradition and Westernisation was such an
important argument, in fact not only in art but also in
political relationship. Back to your original question, I
think China and many other Asian countries have been
going through similar changes in the society. In fact, Japan
has experienced such critical moments and that has
ertainly been reflected in the recent artistic practices.
KW: I am interested also in the situation for a younger
emerging artists post Murakami and Nara – both having
achieved huge international success and recognition. I
wonder what opportunities exist in Japan for younger
artists. I am interested in your MAM projects and how
Mori Art Museum itself is supporting the activities of the
emerging artists. What do you see as the issues facing
young Japanese artists, working within an art scene that is
now so internationalized.
MK: I think across the world, it’s a tough time for younger
generations but it is the same for mid-carrier and senior
one’s as well. In a way, young artists have many more
opportunities to be financially supported as there are
more programmes to support emerging talents. I think
Murakami has emerged from the time of global art. So
everyone was eager to see what is coming out from

different regions. I think you can make an interesting
comparison between Murakami and Ozawa and Aida.
They all belong to the same generation. Murakami
became super successful because it matched the
requirement of the time and he knew how to position
himself in a certain cultural and historical context. And it
was very open to the international art community by
referring to Pop Art.
If you compare him with Aida Makoto, Aida deals with a
much more complicated artistic methods, medium and
social, political themes all intertwined in the certain
complexity and ambiguity in Japan. It is harder for an
outsider to understand, but also harder for Japanese to
make sense of because sometimes it is very extreme, and
also his style is changing all the time. He could create a
very dramatic painting along with very meticulous
paintings, seriously political sculptures and silly videos.
So he has no definable or easily understandable style. His
work is multi-layered in terms of its meanings, hard to pin
down. We need to make an effort to read or interpret and
articulate all of these when considering his practice.
That complexity is to more true of Japanese society.
Japanese culture and history is not that Superflat. It is
much more complicated and ambiguous and Aida
represents such difficulties of Japanese society whilst also
expressing individual emotion and thoughts, all
preserved, traditionally. Murakami and Aida make for an
interesting comparison. It takes time for an artist like
Aida, to achieve a level of international recognition. In the
meantime, Ozawa Tsuyoshi was in a way taking another

path. He started his Sodan Geijyutsu – consultation art in
the late 80s and it was often articulated in the context of
Relational Art or participatory art. He became one of
those artists who could incorporate local people and
social context encouraging audiences to participate in his
works.
KW: You touched upon quite interesting issue about
engagement with audiences. Also, you previously
expressed your thoughts on the Echigo-Tsumari
Triennale. During the past decade, there has been a boom
in such contemporary art projects in various areas of
Japan, often as a tool of rural, town or city regeneration.
What may be unique about these projects is that many are
happening outside the situ of the museum and are being
led NPOs and by the communities where the projects take
place. From these new sites organisations are exploring
approaches to artistic production and exhibition, often
engaging with the complexities of the rural situation and
working with its local context to address economic or
social issues. In the meantime, as part of the increasingly
globalised art scene, contemporary public art is being
reinvented by contributions of artists beyond the
traditional international centre’s.
KW: For instance Beppu project, NPO, amongst numerous
others. Part of my interest lies in what impact such
projects actually have on communities. I just wonder
what your view point is?
MK: I think importance should be placed on that society
for the needs of multiple layers of activities. For instance

Setouchi Art Festival is realising beautiful projects
because they bring artists and young people, not only for
the time where and when they have biennales, but also
beyond that time as some of those young people are
returning to stay in the remote islands, opening cafés or
small art projects. When we are talking about localized
communities, then that really makes sense when
considering that sort of visible audience.
They can create one-to-one relationship with audience,
which is really great in a sense that we can feel
contemporary art could be some sort of medium to make
social connections. Wherase, a large institution like Mori
Art Museum has large and anonymous audiences. There
are things that can be done in such large museum in the
very visible and accessible location, from connecting
ideas of contemporary art to the larger international
audience, making contemporary art as a part of modern
life, making international and scholarly discourse visible
for the wider public, to making history by doing all of
them.
KW: Yes, that is interesting.
MK: So it’s not about having large or small things. Now is
more about, and this relates to my presentation at the
Daiwa, connections and the connecting of activities. Ones
that you feel are more true to yourself or real, that could
be connected. Activities that Masato Nakamura is doing,
undertaking projects in Japan at a nationwide level. He is
also trying to become a focal point of all such small
activities, not only from 3331 Arts Chiyoda in Tokyo, but

also in Tohoku and many other places. By having that
kind of space, one that makes connections possible, he
can achieve that kind of goal to connect those small
activities.
KW: Yes, I am interested in what Nakamura-san’s
activities. 3331 Arts Chiyoda as a hub from which such
connections may take place.
MK: Yes. So doing something is different from connecting
those projects. And probably it’s very important to find
somebody who could act as a connector instead of
initiator. I think Masato is very much aware of that role.
KW: Nakamura-san’s projects do seem to offer an
interesting model but do you think that such projects
could have wider impact outside of Japan?
MK: I am sure his activities could and he is already
connected with activities outside of Japan. He has invited
people for instance from Taipei Art Center, which is also
another artist run space. Within his vision, I think it is
possible to make a connection between people who work
in with a similar purpose, similar vision and similar scale.
But they are certainly not going to become a museum of
Modern Art in New York. It is totally different. I think this
connection or networking of art or art activities is simply
one artwork.
It is more Rhizome in approach, kind of inter-connected
complicated connections. As larger institution, Mori Art
Museum, we are trying to achieve a larger vision as to how
the international art world is changing. But also through

one project, we can look at some emerging artists
throughout the world. We also have a series of talks
created to really look at small but urgent issues that
should be discussed, called “Urgent Talk”. So as an
institution, we need to have a number of multi-faced or
multi-level activities to make one institution much more
organic and dynamic. There is no clear way for anything.
It is just a continual effort to make most out of what we
have.
KW: Thank you

Transcript of a conversation that took
place in 2013 at Mori Art Museum,
Tokyo, as part of a Japan Foundation
Fellowship.
Special thanks to Mami Kataoka, staff at
Mori Art Museum and The Japan
Foundation.
Transcript by Miho Shimizu
© Keith Whittle 2022