Slightly outdated taste: promo movie on The Japan Foundation’s Website

As anticipated (see the previous installment of this column) and now reported in the media, Isozaki Arata has quit his post as the director of the 2005 Yokohama Triennale, and artist Kawamata Tadashi has taken over the helm. What a confusion… But maybe it’s a favourable turn of events, as Kawamata seems to be working on it eagerly, and his statement raises our hopes: "My intention is to put together a Yokohama 2005 that is quite unlike any other international exhibition the world has seen."

This is what one can read on the Yokohama Triennale page inside The Japan Foundation’s Website, a site crammed with so many things that it’s difficult to find one’s way around. Lucky you if you manage to find the explanation of what exactly The Japan Foundation IS: "The Japan Foundation, that was established in 1972 as a special legal entity to undertake international cultural exchange, became an independent administrative institution on October 1, 2003." The Foundation’s capital as of March 2003 reportedly amounts to 1,109 billion yen, the entire sum being an investment of state.

This huge amount (please don't drag me into discussions on how "huge" it is…) is spent on the three central programs "Arts and Cultural Exchange", "Japanese-Language Education Overseas" and "Japanese Studies and Intellectual Exchange", as well as other businesses, so little wonder that the site is such a mess (someone who has been involved with Website making for almost ten years now, I'd like to comment that there are a number of elegant ways around this, but again, no further discussion here). The problem is rather that, with the exception of professionals from the business who apply for funding, the basically very welcome cultural exchange programs the Foundation is hosting or supporting is mostly unknown to the man on the street. This is notable particularly as far as operations outside Japan are concerned.

In 2004 for example, I guess the Japanese pavilion at the 9th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition and the Broadway show of the musical "Pacific Overtures" were the only properly promoted Foundation-supported overseas events. While the former was dealing with the "otaku" (nerd, geek) phenomenon, the latter probably benefited from popular stage director Miyamoto Amon’s involvement. But even though these two were featured in NHK programs, one surely can't say that they reached a wide international audience. And there were a number of other interesting, small events that took place around the world without many people taking notice:

Jan.

artists Kitayama Yoshio, Tsubaki Noboru and Domoto Yumi at the Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh

Feb.

Performances of dance company H-Art Chaos in Russia, Finland and Poland

Jul.

Animator Kobayashi Kyoji at Kuala Lumpur International Literary Festival

Aug.

Novelist Yamamura Koji at Seoul Animation Center

Sep.

Performances of puppet theatre company Youkiza in six European cities, and photographer Hatakeyama Naoya at Sao Paulo Biennale

English only: The Japan Society’s site

Besides these there are actually quite a lot of artists traveling around the world that really make one feel like asking why in the world the Foundation chose to sponsor them. If you add all the scientists and researchers the Foundation sends overseas, you get a fairly long list of names, most of which remain virtually unknown to people other than those related to the respective projects. The cultural "exchange" goes only in one direction, and doesn't quite reach the level of the audience/consumer. That is because the audiences/consumers in Japan and overseas simply don't know about events taking place in countries oter than their own. As far as I am concerned, with the exception of the Biennale-related events (which I knew about through my work for the art magazine I'm editing/publishing) I didn't know about any of those mentioned above until searching the Foundation’s Website.

I think this is simply a sad state of affairs. Why don't they hook up with the media? If the budget doesn't allow to dispatch journalists along with the artists, it should at least be possible to achieve with the help of local Foundation offices that pre- and reviews are published before and after events, and placed somewhere (easy to find!) on the Foundation’s Website. If it’s something that looks interesting, other media will naturally pick it up and report on it.

Shown through January 2: Tomatsu Shomei exhibition

On January 7-8, 2005, by the way, the Japan Society New York will host the "8th Japanese Contemporary Dance Showcase". This festival is where the likes of Yamazaki Kota or Condors made their US debuts, and this time participants include Kanamori Jo’s "Noism05", Kuroda Ikuyo’s "Batik", Moriyama Kaiji, and others. If you happen to be in New York in January, I warmly recommend to catch this splendid lineup of artists one rarely gets to see all at once even here in Tokyo. In this event (which is sponsored by the Agency for Cultural Affairs) the Japan Foundation is not involved, but also here one is not exactly bombarded with information. Providing cash alone doesn't create cultural exchange, so please, ladies and gentlemen at all the foundations and agencies, would you provide more information?