WASHIDA MERURO

Portrait by Oyamada Kuniya.

Washida Meruro (born 1973) was previously the Director of the Towada Art Center and is Associate Professor, Tokyo University of the Arts. He was a curator at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa from 1999 to 2018. Washida received his master's degree from the University of Tokyo, where he studied art history. He specializes in contemporary art history and museum studies and curates contemporary art and architecture exhibitions and projects. His major curatorial works for the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa include “Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA” (2005); “Atelier Bow-Wow” (2007); “Kanazawa Platform 2008” (2008); “Jeppe Hein” (2011), “Shimabuku” (2013); “Starting Points: Japanese Art of the ‘80s.” He was the curator of the Japan Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale held in 2017 and Aichi Triennale 2019. In 2020, he became the director of Towada Art Center, where he co-curated “Inter + Play” (2020-21). 

LUCIJA ŠUTEJ: Who do you credit as a formative influence towards a career in contemporary art and curating? 

MERURO WASHIDA: I became interested in art at a very young age because my father, Kiyokazu Washida, a philosopher, painted as a hobby. He would take me with him to draw outside. When I was around 9 years old, we relocated to Germany, and I remember my dad taking us to many museums around Europe. Together, we explored his favorite paintings, mostly from the Post-Impressionism period.

As I returned to Japan, my love of painting continued. In high school, I took a course where the teacher was a sculptor and I remember that we spent one year together just creating a sculpture of a face. This experience was very impactful because previous teachers had encouraged me to paint more freely as if it were childlike. But in high school, the teacher taught us to draw more precisely. He would point out differences between my drawing and the real face, making me realize how difficult and interesting it is to see something accurately.

LŠ: Your father, Kiyokazu Washida, was an important influence - in addition to teaching you about philosophy, did he also discuss art with you?

MW: He didn't teach me directly about philosophy, but his lifestyle as a university teacher, writing essays at midnight, probably influenced me. For example, I never considered working in a company (laughs). The most influential person was actually my friend from university, Hiroshi Yoshida. During our first and second years, we took general literature courses together before specializing - I went into art history while he pursued aesthetics. He's now a professor of music aesthetics. When we were first-year students, he was deeply interested in contemporary music, especially John Cage. We spent a lot of time together discussing art and music. (laughs) 

LŠ: And the art scene of the early 90s in Tokyo? 

MW: Around the late 1990s, about ten young galleries emerged that operated differently from the traditional Japanese gallery model. Prior, the habit was that galleries would mainly rent space to artists and essentially help with public relations and collector connections. However, these new galleries adopted the European/American gallery model of representing specific artists.

Two important pioneers were Gallery Koyanagi and Tomio Koyama Gallery. Koyanagi represented Hiroshi Sugimoto, who started as a photographer but later became interested in architecture and began designing buildings. Tomio Koyama initially represented Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara before they moved to larger galleries like Gagosian. These galleries were the first generation in Japan to operate like European galleries, and now they're major players participating in fairs like Art Basel.

LŠ: And your entry into the field of art curation? 

MW: I chose to study art history in university. While still a student, I started a part-time job at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo (opened in 1995). Through this experience, I learned how curators work in museums and felt that I wanted to become a curator.  Also through work at Setagaya Art Museum, I met curator Yuko Hasegawa, who had a big influence on my life. Following graduation, I worked at Setagaya Art Museum for four months before moving to Kanazawa to work on opening a new museum there.

LŠ: The city of Kanazawa had an ambition to integrate contemporary art at the center of its urban fabric via its plan for the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa - what made it unique in the Japanese landscape? 

MW: The concept of Tamotsu Yamaide, the mayor, was very clear, which was the first important point. Kanazawa is a traditional city with no big industry, preserved from destruction during World War II. The mayor decided to create a contemporary art museum despite opposition from those who wanted a more traditional art museum. The museum had two main missions: to add contemporary art to Kanazawa and to revitalize the city center. It was part of an effort to make the city more compact again, as young people had been moving to the suburbs because the lifestyle with cars became common and old houses at the center were cold and humid. The museum was built in the city center to attract the young population back and stimulate activity in surrounding areas. I think the new museum succeeded in realizing these two missions and in the surrounding area, many new shops and restaurants emerged.

Palais de Tokyo and Tate Modern opened almost at the same time as Kanazawa, and that was very stimulating for our project. From the perspective of relating to the local area, the Guggenheim Bilbao was another model - it showed how a major museum in a smaller city could transform it. Sometimes when the mayor explained why we were building a new museum in Kanazawa, he would reference the Guggenheim Bilbao.

LŠ: When did this trend of presentation and intertwining of contemporary art to redefine cities start in Japan?

MW: In the 1980s, many prefectures built new museums, such as Saitama, Miyagi, Fukushima, and Fukuoka, often in parks or suburbs. The economic bubble collapse in the 1990s slowed museums’ construction. Around 2000, projects for the new museums like the 21st Century Museum in Kanazawa and Mori Art Museum started, strongly connected with urban planning. This was influenced by examples like the Guggenheim Bilbao and Tate Modern, which had strong relationships with their cities. Another contribution to the growing art landscape was newspapers such as ​​The Mainichi, The Yomiuri, and The Asahi, etc. which would organise exhibitions in major museums across Japan. Blockbuster shows that introduce Western masterpieces to Japanese audiences.

In 2008, I curated an exhibition titled Kanazawa Art Platform, where we invited 19 artists to take over specific parts of the city. We installed artworks in various locations, such as the local art college, and a public park, and also renovated an old Japanese-style house. We actively worked with local schools and a senior care facility. For us at the museum, the Kanazawa Art Platform was a way to not only activate the city through art but also to give back to the city on many levels.

LŠ: That’s beautiful. In our previous conversation, you mentioned renovating a traditional house. Could you elaborate on that project?

MW: It was a collaborative Machiya Guest House project, a part of Kanazawa Art Platform, with the architectural studio Atelier Bow-Wow. I invited them to renovate an old, empty Japanese-style house and turn it into a guest house with students from the Art College and the University of Technology in Kanazawa. The Machiya Guest House still exists today. When I curated that exhibition, I wanted to work with many different communities and layers of the city.

Renovation of the building is finished. However, because it is an old wooden building, it is damaged easily, and we always have to repair it. Running as a guest house is ongoing. It connected the friends from outside of the city with the experience in the traditional house.

Machiya Guest House by Atelier Bow-Wow, Kanazawa Art Platform, 2008.

LŠ: Having led triennials, such as the Aichi Triennale, how do you see these large-scale projects contributing to the cultural landscapes of cities in Japan? As a curator, how do you see biennials contributing to cities’ revitalization process?

MW: For me, the goal was never just one layer. When the scale becomes as big as a triennial, the audience isn’t just local—it invites people from areas such as Tokyo, Kyoto, and sometimes outside Japan. It is interesting to study the impact of visitors, for example in Nagoya, which is a big city, visitors from outside don’t have as much influence. But in Kanazawa, which is smaller, outside visitors have a bigger impact. A large focus through local and biennial platforms was to work with local residents. Kanazawa Art Platform enabled the renovation of old Japanese houses with students and local neighbors, where the students interviewed communities about the history of the houses and the area. We displayed those stories in the renovated house during the exhibition.

The venue in Nagoya was already decided before I became the curator. I started my work by researching the area and discovered that it contained houses that had survived World War II. Before that, my image of Nagoya was of a modern city destroyed by bombs in 1945. But this tiny area had been preserved, and it was within walking distance from Nagoya Station. I wanted to show this surprising fact through the exhibition. Alongside the road, we rented empty houses and shops to use as exhibition venues. In smaller cities like Kanazawa or Toyama, where the population is shrinking, there are many empty houses. But in Nagoya, which is more economically active, it’s harder to find them. Even when we found a space and negotiated with the owner, sometimes they would say, “It’s empty now, but if someone else wants to rent it, I can’t give it to you.” Importantly, we could open traditional empty houses in this area to the public and accelerate the revitalization of the area using the attractiveness of old houses. For example, one of the empty houses that we used for the exhibition turned into a Sushi restaurant after the Triennale.

Iwasaki Takahiro, The City in the Town Warehouse, Aichi Triennale, 2019. Photo by Toyama Masahiro.

LŠ: How do you see the current state of the art market in Japan?

MW: For about 30 years after the economic bubble burst in the 1990s, the art market in Japan was stagnant. Museums stopped collecting, and galleries focused on promoting Japanese artists like Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara abroad. But since around 2010, a new generation of collectors has emerged—young entrepreneurs in their 30s and 40s who are interested in contemporary art. This has slowly changed the market, which is growing compared to 10 years ago, but it’s still small compared to other Asian countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, or South Korea. We also recently saw the emergence of art fairs like Art Fair Tokyo and Art Collaboration Kyoto.

LŠ: Through your curatorial work we see a strong interest in the impact of architecture on different spheres of life. Why and when did you decide to specialize in architectural exhibitions and explore connections between architecture and contemporary art?

MW: It really began with working with SANAA to create the 21st Century Museum in Kanazawa. That was very interesting for me. I studied art history, but through this experience, I came to know the world of architecture for the first time. After the museum opened, I organized an exhibition of SANAA’s work in the museum they designed. Their approach was unique—they treated models not as exact copies of buildings but as sculptures.

For example, when I curated their exhibition in Kanazawa in 2005, they were designing the Rolex Learning Center in Switzerland. They made a large model in the gallery, but when they saw it in the space, they changed its proportions to fit the room. This showed me that for them, the model is more like an installation than a representation of the building.

Model of EPFL Rolex Learning Center, SANAA exhibition.

Atelier Bow-Wow has also been influential. They focus on how buildings relate to people and the city, not just their form. For example, the house we renovated in Kanazawa was called Machi Ya, which means “townhouse.” It’s a building that’s open to the street, with shops or workshops on the ground floor. This type of architecture connects the house to the city, and that’s what Atelier Bow-Wow emphasized.

LŠ: What were some challenges you found in curating architectural exhibitions?

MW: One challenge is that you’re always talking about objects that are somewhere else. To address this, I invited photographers like Walter Niedermayr, Luisa Lambri, and Takashi Homma to the SANAA exhibition to shoot the building in their way. For example, Lambri focused on a single window at different times and in various climate conditions to express the feeling of the building.

Collaboration is important. Having worked with architects like SANAA and Atelier Bow-Wow on different projects enabled me to gain new perspectives on architecture and urban planning. These experiences influenced how I approach curating and thinking about cities and buildings.

LŠ: Do you think we should reconsider how we approach architectural exhibitions? If so, how?

MW: Traditional architectural exhibitions, with photographs and models, can be boring because they don’t offer a direct experience of the space. I think exhibitions should be more direct, like sculptures or installations. They should also engage with the local community and address broader issues, like how architects can contribute to social or educational projects.

Shiota Chiharu, Memory of Water, Towada Art Center, photo by Oyamada Kuniya.