Jonathan Watkins

Conversation
with Jonathan
Watkins
Director of Ikon Gallery

Jonathan Watkins led Ikon for over 20 years,
joining the gallery in 1999. Previously he
worked for a number of years in London, as
Curator of the Serpentine Gallery (1995-1997)
and Director of Chisenhale Gallery
(1990-1995).
He has curated a number of large
international exhibitions including the
Biennale of Sydney (1998), Facts of Life:
Contemporary Japanese Art (Hayward
Gallery, London 2001), Quotidiana (Castello
di Rivoli, Turin 1999, Tate Triennial (2003),
Shanghai Biennale (2006), Sharjah Biennial
(2007), Negotiations (Today Art Museum,
Beijing 2010) and the Guangzhou Triennial
(2012).
He was on the curatorial team for Europarte
(Venice Biennale, 1997), Milano Europa
2000, (Palazzo di Triennale, Milan 2000),
and Riwaq (Palestinian Biennial 2007). He
curated the Iraqi Pavilion for the Venice
Biennale in 2013 and Floating World,
Bahrain in 2017. In 2019 Watkins was the

curator of Small Between the Stars, Large
Against the Sky, the 9th Manif d’art Quebec
City Biennial.
Jonathan Watkins has written extensively on
contemporary art. Essays have focused on
the work of Giuseppe Penone, Martin Creed,
Semyon Faibisovich, Yang Zhenzhong,
Noguchi Rika, Oliver Beer, Beat Streuli and
Cornelia Parker. He was the author of the
Phaidon monograph on Japanese artist On
Kawara.

Keith Whittle (KW): Thank you for agreeing to meet. I
know you only have a short time to speak today so do
please let’s begin. Can you give an overview of your
professional background and current role as the Director
of Ikon? I would then like to discuss in more detail your
interest in, experiences of and work in curating Japanese
contemporary art.
Keith Whittle (KW): Over the last 15 years you have
curated several important solo and group exhibitions and
written extensively on Contemporary Japanese Art.
Exhibitions such as Facts of Life: Contemporary Japanese
Art (Hayward Gallery, London, 2001); Tatsumi Orimoto,
Bread Man (IKON Gallery 2001); On Kawara,
Consciousness. Meditation. Watcher on the Hills (IKON
Gallery 2003); Atsuko Tanaka, The Art of Connecting
(IKON Gallery, 2011), to mention but a few. All
demonstrate considerable interest in and commitment to
profiling modern and contemporary art from Japan.
Could you possibly outline further your strong curatorial
focus on Asian contemporary art and more specifically
Japanese art?
Jonathan Watkins ( JW): I had been aware of
contemporary Japanese art for some years, long before I
went to Japan. When I was the director of Chisenhale
Gallery, I did an exhibition with Yoko Terauchi. That was
in 1994. And at the Serpentine, I worked with Kawamata,
whose work I saw at Annely Juda Gallery in London and
was completely bowled over by it. Then I left the
Serpentine in ‘97 and was appointed artistic director for
the 1998 Biennale of Sydney. That was a wonderful

opportunity for me to undertake research, to travel to
parts of the world that I hadn’t visited before, especially
those closer to Australia, particularly in South East Asia
and Japan, China, and Korea. I included several Japanese
artists in the Biennale that I have worked with
subsequently, developing long term relationships with
some of them, such as On Kawara, Kawamata and
Shimabuku who I am showing next year at Ikon – a big
survey of his work. So my deepening interest in Japanese
art started in 1997 and continues to deepen. It’s
interesting to me how much Japanese art appeals to me.
As a curator, I want to make exhibitions of work I like,
which is not to say that I am not critical, but you know,
critical conversation has to be around something one
wants to engage with …
KW: In 2001, you co-curated the exhibition Facts of Life:
Contemporary Japanese Art the single largest show of
contemporary Japanese art held in the UK. I recall that
the atmosphere of the show was generally quiet and
understated, lacking all the ostentation of Japanese Neo-
Pop as exemplified by the work of Nara Yoshitomo and
Murakami Takashi, who had by that time become
internationally known. There seemed a definite intent to
not ‘define’ Japan or ‘Japaneseness,’ but instead to present
interesting art being made in Japan at that time. Avoiding
the narrow selectivity of international representations of
Japanese art after 1990, the exhibition gave a more
diversified and polyphonic view of contemporary
practice at that time. Could you discuss how that
exhibition came about, your intentions, ambitions and the

specific ideas behind your choice of artists who were
represented in the exhibition?
JW: It was the Japan Festival. The reason why I was asked
to do that was that I’d recently arrived back in the UK and
reconnected with the Hayward, people who I knew there
who were looking around for a curator to do a show for
the Japan Festival that had been booked in some years
previously. They accepted my proposal, developed out of
the proposition of my Biennale in Sydney, that focused on
everyday reality rather than Japanese postmodern
weirdness.
KW: Yes. I didn’t see the biennale in Sydney, but I read a
lot about it and then looking back at the exhibition I saw
at Hayward, I could see such continuity.
JW: Basically, what I was doing was taking the same basic
argument and applying it to one particular corner of the
art world. I was not so interested in art about art, or artists
obsessed by their artistic identity; neither were those
artists whose practise is centred on their national identity.
Another thing perhaps is that I was coming from a place
still quite obsessed with the YBA phenomenon. There was
a kind of nationalism in the air here that I was resisting.
KW: Similarly the Tate triennial exhibition, where, as with
the exhibition at Hayward, you also took a different
curatorial approach in your avoiding the more obvious
names prevalent at that time such YBA artists like Sara
Lucas.

JW: Yes, exactly. I have always have been interested in
something slightly quieter, or a little less obvious or less
theatrical. At the same time, it is important that one sort
of mixes things up, at least to keep the attention of one’s
audience. I didn’t want to go down the “Superflat" road. It
was playing on a kind of exoticism, often very much with
foreign markets in mind. I wanted to tell an alternative
story, falling in with Oscar Wilde’s proposition, which is
that Japan is very ordinary place rather than spinning a
story of weirdness that previous exhibitions had done. For
example, the particularities, or peculiarities, of Japan
were very much the focus of “Against Nature: Japanese Art
in the Eighties”, the show that Thomas Sokolowski did
with Kathy Halbreich in the US.
KW: In retrospect, the Japanese art scene in the early to
mid-1990s was not so dissimilar to that of present-day
China. It was at the beginning of its boom within the
international art market, with numerous curators and art
dealers visiting Japan searching for young art stars. Over
the last 10 years Chinese and Korean contemporary art
has taken centre stage on the international art market and
as such played a major role in defining the ‘contemporary’
through their increasingly powerful and extremely
vibrant arts scene. Mami Kataoka has previously spoken
of how in Japan, where the market, collectors, audience –
everything, 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 seemingly tend to buy
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 neighbour, China. 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. Murakami believes this is partly to do with
extortionate and bureaucratic inheritance tax laws set up
after the war but, maybe more importantly it seems that
private collectors and patrons of the arts in Japan are
seemingly more interested in an engagement with art
centred around revitalising areas, Benesse Art Site being
the primary example, rather than one simply on
collecting it.
JW: I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that were
the case.
KW: You have recently held several important curatorial
positions in China (Member of the 6th Shanghai Biennale
Curatorial Team, Curator of The Theme Exhibition of The
4th Guangzhou Triennial), and have worked with
emerging and prominent Japanese and Chinese artists,
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on why Chinese
contemporary art, in particular, has taken centre stage on
the international art scene, playing a major role in
defining the ‘contemporary’ and if you feel that Japanese
collectors have decided to pursue an engagement with art
towards revitalisation through social investment?
JW: No. Except that the radar moves on, and a certain
kind of fatigue sets in. But also, that the explosion of
interest in Japan coincided with an economic bubble, and

then the bubble burst and various manifestations of
Japanese culture – even Japanese tourists! – were no
longer so much in evidence in the wider world.
Meanwhile, in China, the policies of Deng Xiaoping
started to take effect, and the rest is an extraordinary
ongoing story, not the same as Japan’s. Japan had a very
strong relationship with America in a way that was
distinctively different from what is going on with China.
China is huge. The correspondence between the Chinese
and Russian art worlds is sort of more pertinent. In a way,
the “Fuck Off” exhibition in China (2000), Neo-pop
strategies and cathartic performance art are reminiscent
of what went on in Russia during the 1980s and 90s.
There has been a kind of violence in Chinese work that is
likewise to do with wanting to escape the shackles of a
totalitarian regime.
KW: If we go back a little to our discussion on the unique
situations of Japan and China, and the development of
20th-century Japanese art then we should highlight its
extremely vibrant avant-garde movements; its pre-war
Futurist, Dada, Constructivist and Surrealist phases (artist
groups such as Mavo in the 1920s, for instance), Arte
Povera, neo-Dada, Fluxus / Tokyo Fluxus and art
radicalised by the social tumult of the 1960s (Mono-ha, Hi
Red Centre, Gutai, Kyushu-ha), Performance and
Conceptualism (as exemplified by expatriate artists
famous outside Japan, such as Yoko Ono or On Kawara)
and ‘bubble era’ Postmodernist cultural critique (Dumb
Type, for instance). Currently, in Japan, the work by
collectives such as Command N and young emerging
artists Ichiro Endo and Chim↑Pom, explore performance,

installation with energy far more redolent and the critical
edge of the work of avant-garde groups of the 1960s and
1970s. Japanese artists do seem to be exploring once again
relationships between contemporary art and real life,
claimed by artists of earlier movements such as Tokyo
Fluxus, Hi Red Centre, Tokyo Fluxus, Gutai, 1000-Yen-
Note Incident Discussion Group with their strong focus
on reflections on social interactions, society, and
humanness through performances in varying situations.
KW: Do you feel that gradually, contemporary art in Japan
is hence being brought back to the front of social reality,
in some ways in direct response to and in opposition to
the Art Market, and is directly or indirectly related to,
social, cultural, political and ecological activism? And do
you think that the interactive relationship among artist,
work and public is now at the very centre of many
emerging Japanese artists, intellectual and even political
concerns and hence their artistic engagement? If so what
conditions do you see as having contributed to these
current mutations?
JW: Yes. There is a significant continuity. You see it in the
work of Kawamata, for example, a “relational” kind of
work. It was there before Nicolas Bourriaud wrote
Relational Aesthetics, and he could have picked up a little
bit more on the Asian side of things I think,
internationalised his inquiry, looking more at people like
Navin Rawanchaikul, Shimabuku, Tadasu Takamine,
Makoto Nomura – and further back, to the Gutai artists.
Around the time I was doing the Sydney Biennale, Junichi
Shioda then at MOT in Tokyo, made an exhibition called

“The Gift of Hope”. It was all very much about an
exchange, collaboration and engaging with audiences. I
was picking up on that, much more than previously, the
work that was breaking down the division between the
artist as producer and the audience as a consumer. I
found that quite exciting. And I think partly that is why I
want to do the exhibition of Shimabuku, a major
exponent of that relational tendency. His work is not so
exciting to the art market and certainly, he doesn’t make
as much money as Murakami, but as a cultural
phenomenon, he is equally interesting if not more
interesting.
KW: That is something I have noticed over the last five
years. The interactive relationship amongst artists and the
public, that social engagement seems to be becoming
more important to the newer generation of the artists.
JW: It sits outside of the market, and it’s difficult to
sustain…
KW: As part of the increasingly international global art
scene, contemporary public art is being reinvented by the
unprecedented contributions of curators and artists
beyond the traditional international centre’s. Projects
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 Beppu Project and Breaker
Project, Osaka, amongst others, aim to renew a sense of
citizenship through cultural activity, art with a social
purpose. How do you view such projects and do you
believe they offer sound models or approaches to creative
practise and could they play a leading role in developing
arts practice, as well as defining it?
JW: I have heard about them, met the people who have
co-ordinated them, but have never actually been and wish
I had. It is an interesting phenomenon and reflects the
tendency in Asian cultures – pervasive before European
contact in the 19th century – not to treat artworks as
discrete objects. And cultural memory is not so short.
There hasn’t been such an established obsession in Asia
with the discrete art object produced by a sensitive
“artist” genius, in the same way, there has been in the
west. It was much more about shared experience. Now we
show Ukiyoe on walls, framed and glazed, but it was
originally made for people to collect and they enjoyed
passing it around, sharing it amongst groups of friends
and acquaintances.
KW: You curated an exhibition at Ikon of Ukiyo-e prints
by Utamaro.
JW: Yes, most recently, Utamaro. Of course, there was
some Western influence in Japan before him, but still, the
Japanese art world isn’t one in which relational practice is
simply a repudiation of modernist tradition – and the
notion of the artwork as a discrete gesture – but it is
arguably a continuation of an earlier tradition. That’s my

line. I think probably that is one of the reasons why I am
particularly interested in art from Asia. There is an ethos
there that appeals to me. It seems more humane, more
human, less religious or pseudo-religious.
KW: I met Fram Kitagawa and interviewed him in
February this year. It was interesting talking with him. He
was heavily involved in the radical student movement in
Japan in the late 60s a movement that seems to be largely
forgotten about now. He has very clear political views and
his reasoning behind the Echigo-Tsumari is not just
purely about the placing of the art in that particular
location and context, but one which is very much about
politicised activity. He is a really interesting character?
JW: Yes, he is.
KW: In his essay for the catalogue to Bye Bye Kitty:
Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art,
Tetsuya Ozaki, the former editor of ART iT, makes a
connection between “a system that doesn’t make people
happy” and the current “floating generation” of suicides,
hikikomori, and otaku. He demonstrates how young
Japanese artists are resisting “the kawaii phenomenon” as
a means of escape and argues for a broader
understanding of Japanese artists as adults both reacting
to and transcending their cultural environment. Ozaki
points to a generation of ‘post’-Murakami artists now
producing work that indicates a more complicated, adult
view of life, melding traditional viewpoints with
perceptions of present and future in radical and
sometimes unsettling combinations. Form, spirituality

and the struggle between extremes of fantasy and
nightmare, ideal and real take place. But what do you see
as the concerns or overriding themes of an emerging
generation of Japanese artists?
JW: Again, I’m not particularly qualified to talk about it.
But certainly, it is the kind of attitude I like to encounter.
Interestingly, David Elliott was the curator of such a show,
after his experience. I envy him! How rare to have
someone like him from abroad to be the director of a
major museum like Mori Art Museum.
KW: Well, I thought it was quite remarkable. Japan is very
inward-looking and can be overly protective. And to have
him as a director, I think he was there for 5 years?
JW: Yes, I think he had a 5-year contract and well, it could
be said that Japan has reverted to type, foreign influence
is excluded and now we have more homogeneity within
such an institution. Let me just read what everybody is
saying here, “big generation of suicide, Hikikomori.” what
is that? And Otaku, I know.
KW: Hikikomori, is acute social withdrawal.
JW: It is very interesting what is happening. Japan is
rather dysfunctional nowadays, especially concerning
young men. The neat idea of the salaryman, who gets up
in a dormitory suburb, gets on to the train, and goes to
town to work, is being increasingly challenged.
KW: If we look at the younger generation of the artists,
some you may have met, or have come into contact with

over the last 3-5 years, working in Japan’s contemporary
art scene, but of course not internationally recognised
such as Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara,
photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and painter Hiroshi
Senju, Tatsuo Miyajima and Yasumasa Morimura. The
current ‘post’ generation of artists, what do you think they
are increasingly influenced by, their concerns, and how
they are responding to the increasingly international art
scene?
JW: Certainly, the Japanese art scene is not booming and a
lot of Japanese artists live abroad and, like Shimabuku,
don’t particularly want to go back. Their feeling is that the
country is rather insular without much room for freedom
of expression.
KW: Yes.
JW: I don’t think I could live there, but on the other hand,
I am fascinated by it. And slightly love it in a way that I
was describing. I identify a lot with it, aesthetically,
philosophically in a way that I don’t with other Asian
cultures.
KW: I understand. I have had an interest in Japanese
culture for some time now, but I don’t yet know, if I could
or could not live there that is, for any pre-longed period.
My approach is very much that it’s good to be there and
it’s good to come away from it, because I can then look at
what I have explored and what I have seen from a
distance, with some perspective, which I find very
difficult to do whilst in Japan.

JW: I wish I was more in Japan undertaking research.
Usually, I am there for days rather than weeks, often to
promote something that I have produced elsewhere, like
the Tanaka exhibition. Facts of Life was over ten years
ago, but I would love to think that it still had some
relevance.
KW: I think the focus of “Facts of Life” is interesting, this
idea of every day and the interactions that take place. And
now bag up to date, 11 years later. It is interesting how
such an exhibition resonates in some ways with my
interests.
KW: What projects are you now working towards, in
terms of Japanese Art, what do you have planned in the
next three or four years?
JW: Well, our Shimabuku exhibition is one. Interestingly,
you talk about Akasegawa because I love to do a show
with him. Also Takashi Homma. I am working with Rikuo
Ueda, the wind drawing guy, Yuko Fujimoto and On
Kawara in Guangzhou.
KW: I am fascinated by On Kawara.
JW: He is fascinating, one of the best artists in the world
right now I think.
KW: I am sorry that I rather run through my interview
questions.
KW: Are you planning on visiting Shanghai Biennale?
JW: Yeah, I will. This is two days after Guangzhou.

KW: OK. Well, I hope to be there.
JW: Yes. It will be fascinating. Then there is Gwanju,
which is also interesting… it opens a couple of weeks
before, with Mami Kataoka as one of the guest curators …
KW: She was kind enough to spare the time to meet with
me in January this year. We talked about Command N and
Nakamura san, Arts Chiyoda 3331. I think Nakamura san is
very interesting. As someone who is a reasonably well
known Japanese artist, Japanese Pavilion 2000 etc., and
now very much involved in work around social
interaction and engagement. I have approached Japan
Foundation, to see whether we can have him here, to
speak in the UK, about his projects, and to look at that in
wider terms of the public realm, arts and cultural
regeneration projects, and to also have Lewis Biggs
participate.
JW: It would be interesting.
KW: Thank you for taking the time to talk today.

Transcript of a conversation that took
place in 2013 at Ikon Gallery,
Birmingham, as part of a Japan
Foundation Fellowship.
Special thanks to Jonathan Watkins,
staff at Ikon and The Japan Foundation.
Transcript by Miho Shimizu
© Keith Whittle 2022