FUMIO NANJO
Fumio Nanjo, portrait courtesy of N&A Inc.
Fumio Nanjo graduated from Keio University with degrees in Economics (1972) and Philosophy, Aesthetics & History of Arts (1977). He is currently President and CEO of N&A Inc. (formerly Nanjo and Associates), Senior Advisor of Mori Art Museum（2020- ), following roles at the Japan Foundation (1978-1986) and as Director of ICA Nagoya (1986-1990).
Nanjo served as Deputy Director (2002-2006) and Director (2006-2019) of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, and now holds advisory roles at institutions including the Towada Art Center, Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, and Arts Maebashi. Internationally, he advises the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Manila and serves on the board of the Singapore Art Museum.
A prominent figure in global art, Nanjo has curated and juried major exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale (1988, 1997), Yokohama Triennale (2001), Singapore Biennale (2006, 2008), and Honolulu Biennale (2017), among others.
LUCIJA ŠUTEJ: You joined the art world during Japan's economic boom. Could you share the major organizations, movements, and figures that helped shape the contemporary art scene at the time?
FUMIO NANJO: I joined the Japan Foundation under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As Japan was booming economically in the 1980s, we started shifting the subject of cultural exchange from traditional to contemporary culture. Previously, I was posted to the Department of Theatre and Performance Art. However, the economy was progressing, times were changing, and I began arguing that we should export contemporary art as well.
Gradually, we started establishing connections with different museums. An important event at the time was the British Council's initiative, which invited eight Japanese curators to see British contemporary art around 1980-1982. David Elliot was one of them, and he later started a program showing Japanese post-war contemporary art at Modern Art Oxford in 1985, titled “Reconstructions: Avant-Garde Art in Japan 1945-1965”.
After certain years, he became the first director of the Mori Art Museum, where I was appointed at the time, as the deputy director to liaise him with the local art world.
LŠ: In 1986, you established the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in Nagoya. What was the vision behind this initiative, and how did it contribute to the art scene?
FN: The ICA was a private initiative in an old factory building, a beautiful setting to show contemporary art. I invited many Italian Arte Povera artists, whose use of industrial materials resonated with the location and with Japanese sensibilities in general. For instance, Mario Merz created a massive spiral table installation covered in flowers and vegetables, with lasers beaming through the space. Until then, the Japanese audience didn’t understand that contemporary art could be this beautiful. And by seeing real fine contemporary art, the Japanese audience gradually started to understand what contemporary art is.
Christian Boltanski, ICA Nagoya, 1990.
Daniel Buren, ICA Nagoya, 1989.
Daniel Buren, ICA Nagoya, 1989.
Mario Merz, ICA Nagoya, 1988. Images courtesy of N&A Inc.
LŠ: What about independent art spaces in Japan during that period? Which ones do you view as particularly impactful, and what challenges did they face?
FN: The Hara Museum was the only private contemporary art institution in Tokyo at the time. It was really up to different exchanges to support contemporary art. For example, I organized the Against Nature exhibition for US museums (MIT List Visual Arts Center and others), where we showcased a postmodern view of Japanese contemporary art. We featured figurative artists, many of them women, with storytelling art that differed from the Mono-ha movement’s material-oriented and abstract approach exported to the US museums, by Hara Museum. This was the first time America saw Japanese contemporary art as a museum exhibition, and there was an interesting tension between the more official, aesthetic Mono-ha style and our narrative, postmodern approach which tells the change of the period of art styles.
LŠ: How did public interest in contemporary art evolve in Japan?
FN: As curators, we always tried to bridge the gap between academic, conceptual approaches and more accessible, popular presentations. The key is finding a balance between accessibility and artistic depth. Sometimes the difficulty of contemporary art adds value by differentiating itself, but you can't remain entirely obscure if you want to engage audiences.
I tried to contextualize art to attract broader audiences. For example, I was perhaps the first curator to organize an exhibition on the theme of Love, presented at the Mori Art Museum.
Installation view: All You Need Is LOVE: From Chagall to Kusama and Hatsune Miku, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2013. Photo by Kioku Keizo. Photo courtesy: Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.
LŠ: Your curatorial path was utterly unique—having previously worked as a travel writer and a banker. How did these experiences shape your approach to art?
FN: Yes, it was a trial period of life (laughs). Before becoming a curator, I worked in a private bank and wrote for a travel magazine. These experiences were incredibly helpful. Understanding economics, bookkeeping, and commerce was useful to understand the art market, and training the writing skills proved valuable for my art criticisms and text of catalogues. To this day, my writing style remains more of a journalist, not an art critic. I write texts with short sentences and paragraphs which are easily digestible.
LŠ: The expansion of contemporary art in Japan achieved a milestone with the Mori Art Museum, where you were previously a director. You mentioned that the founder, Minoru Mori, had a specific vision of a city being an artwork. Could you elaborate?
FN: It was a very interesting moment to plan about an international art institution. Because at that time, people thought that not many foreigners would visit museums, and the main audience would always be Japanese. Mr. Mori wanted to be known internationally, and this vision was reflected in the Mori Art Museum. I later realized this might be connected to his real estate business as he thought that there is no MoMA-like museum in Tokyo. He wanted to have the Museum as the final destination for Tokyo visitors because he knew Tokyo must be prosperous and open to many foreign businesses.
Mori was a latecomer to the real estate field, with giants like Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and Sumitomo already dominating. He struggled to attract foreign companies to rent his spaces, so perhaps by publicizing internationally, he was sending a message: "There's a tall building with a museum, top-tier business spaces, restaurants, and shopping malls. You can have a luxurious life and business environment here. This is the place where your company and your house should come in and stay."
LŠ: A good PR vehicle.
FN: Exactly. During the Fukushima earthquake, Roppongi Hills surprised people—it had an underground power plant using natural gas. So the Roppongi Hills never had a shortage of electricity throughout the period. They could even sell electricity to the Tokyo City Government when the city was experiencing shortages. For international corporations like Goldman Sachs that need 24-hour communication, this meant no risk of being cut off from business operations. Mr. Mori already had a vision of a self-sufficient, eco-friendly cycle for his building. The international marketing and self-sufficiency strategy was quite forward-thinking for its time.
LŠ: You also worked on the Shinjuku Island Public Art Project. Could you tell us more about it and how the audience reacted?
FN: In the early nineties, contemporary art wasn't widely visible in Japan. I was given a chance to curate a prominent public art project with a unique vision: at that time, people couldn't see contemporary art in permanent exhibitions in museums. Then I thought I would transform public spaces into an advanced contemporary art showing space.
My selection included artists from Arte Povera, Pop Art, and Conceptual Art. We featured Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Indiana from Pop Art, Luciano Fabro and Giuseppe Pennoni, Julio Paolini from Arte Povera, and conceptual artists like Hidetoshi Nagasawa and Katsuhito Nishikawa. The project was founded by a public housing corporation and finally it became one of the most expensive and high-quality public art projects in Japan, or maybe in the world…
Ono Yoko: FREIGHT TRAIN, 1999-2001. Photo by Mikio Kurokawa. (Installation view of YOKOHAMA, 2001). Image courtesy N&A Inc.
LŠ: What impact did public art projects have on city planning in Japan?
FN: It made people understand that the public space can have art and it is rather a common practice. After the project, I published a book called From Art to the City, a Record of 15 Years as an Independent Curator which tells about the concept and philosophy of public art, and why we need it. The discussions were intense at the time but gradually, public art became common, it lost passion and spirit, I feel. However, I still believe that the relationship between art and the city remains crucial.
LŠ: How do you see technology influencing artwork presentation within an institutional context?
FN: It's a significant challenge. Media and technology-oriented art will require museums to change fundamentally. We'll need technical specialists, not just curators. Audience will need technological literacy as well.
I see multiple potential futures: One is museums existing entirely as online information. Another is physical museums enhanced by technology, where visitors might attend as avatars. We're just beginning to explore these amazing possibilities.
LŠ: Are there any specific institutions or projects leading the way?
FN: At this moment NO. But occasionally biennials and triennials had experiments in new directions. For example, I saw the Bangkok Biennale showcased performance artists in each gallery space and they perform every one hour regularly or so which nobody had tried.
Biennials are another major force that activate the challenge of art forms—from media art to performance art, with non-material to immersive works, it is a great opportunity for experimenting with new art. The Biennales also contribute to discussions on urban revitalization planning.
LŠ: What are your thoughts on their proliferation?
FN: Many people say there are too many Biennales. In Japan, they're becoming like local summer festivals—each city and region can now have its own Biennial. Some are very unique, featuring strong international artists, while others are more local. This has made contemporary art popular in local communities—something art professionals had long wanted to achieve. However, the professional art scene remains concentrated in a few key locations like Venice, Yokohama, and perhaps Sapporo. I don't criticize the proliferation—it's the democratization of art in society. There is always good art and bad art, but we don't know what is really right.
Biennials will continue, but audiences might become too accustomed. If audience numbers drop, funding will stop. We'll likely enter a period of selection, where some Biennales survive while others fade away.
LŠ: What strategies could ensure their longevity, and how can they avoid becoming repetitive or losing audience interest?
FN: If you can find a new theme of each biennale and new vision for the Biennales, the audience will follow. Actually maybe you have to question what art is in this age. The new creation happens on the border of art and non-art. We have a lot of new territories rejected by conservative art world. I think street art, manga and animation, new media, immersive, information art are all new territories.
LŠ: You also spoke of the impact of biennials on the discussion on urban revitalization planning and I wanted to stop at your work on the platform: Innovative City Forum, launched in 2013. Let’s host a ‘Cultural Davos’ in Tokyo” was the starting point of the Innovative City Forum (ICF), where the platform through conferences and publications discussed the evolution of human history, present challenges to the future of cities, through creativity. Through its decade long activity - what themes and questions remained with you? Which ideas feel more urgent than ever and which ones obsolete? How do you see the role of museums in the context of future cities- can we see their evolution beyond spaces for collective memory to labs for urban experimentation?
FN: I thought the city is recognized by the people and networks. The Davos conference (World Economic Forum) is recognized by the people gathering there. So, I thought if we want to make Tokyo a strong city of creativity, we should have a conference and continuously try to be a hub for creative people. Through the conference we invited urban designers, government officials, designers, artists, scientists, scholars, engineers and ultimately created opportunities for networking and discussions between different genres of professionals.
As for the role of the museum, I believe today's museum should be a platform of different genres of creativity. If you define what art is, it is about creativity. And creativity is not solely tied to art but also science, technology, design, and even politics. Actually, everything can be a matter of art as Joseph Beuys said, everyone is an artist. Museums should be open to wider creativity and be an engine of pulling people towards more creative thinking, more unique ideas, and finally towards the future. If art remains in the same frames and categories, it is not exciting. Art should always go beyond conventional frames and make people question. By this way of thinking, a museum should be at the center of a city and the city should be made around the museums.
Museum is archive for collective memory. Memory becomes history and history is base of civilization. History is data by human being for the proof of life and existence. But now, we are facing the age of AI and the data becomes like a life. Corrective memory goes into the cloud and everywhere. Archives evaporate to data. Physical Museum is not necessary. Museum will then become something else than building. It is the sea of knowledge. So, museum will disappear in the future.
An urgent issue in urban planning is related to human life and the future. Particularly now we are confronting warfare and so much mass murder. What is the meaning of human being and what is the right form of its existence? The lifestyle is not just style, but it is a way of thinking, vision of the future. Whether we can live on positivism or not.
City, Art, and Innovation-The future of cities depicted through creativity and lifestyles, 2024. Published by Gentosha Inc. - https://icf.academyhills.com/assets/pdf/icf_books_en.pdf
LŠ: What is your advice for the future generation of art curators?
FN: You should learn art history but don't be trapped by that. You have to get out of the past and try something new. It has to violate the taboos and borders—but then you become the pioneer. It is always the new vision, new concept, new message that is needed.