I had a dream. I dreamed that I was grouching at my staff.

Can't you do it because you're too busy? Are you becoming disloyal? Are you busy because you can't do it AND you're becoming disloyal?

Argumenting like this surely leads to nothing.

I remember how about 20 years ago, during some furnishing work with PH Studio, architect Hara Hiroshi pointed out that there was one piece of furniture behind frosted glass where we hadn't painted the back side white, and said something along the lines of "an architect must work honestly". This is the first thing I remember learning from Hara. An architect has to be honest and truthful because he has to take care of people’s assets (=lives) and return them safely.

I also learned a lot from Kitagawa Fram. For example, when I began to organize exhibitions at Hillside Gallery, I - well-meaningly - chose a Saturday for the opening party. What I hadn't realized was that people weren't on duty on Saturdays so nobody could come for "business". Saturday is the day when suits-and-necktie businessmen wear jeans and polo shirts. And that’s not all. As it was an exhibition of a still unknown young artist, I didn't bother to hire a waiter but went around and offered guests wine myself. "So what’s the point of throwing a party if there’s not even a 20,000 yen budget for a waiter" was Kitagawa’s comment.

Kawamata Tadashi + PH Studio "Under Construction" (1984, Hillside Terrace)

Then there’s that episode with Kawamata Tadashi. It was at a hostel during a project in Matsuyama in Shikoku. After doing various work and brainstorming until late, when it was time to go to bed, Kawamata said he had to prepare some things for the next day and began to work at his desk. I saw how he wrote addresses onto envelopes, and eventually pinned them to the front of his desk. I went to sleep so I don't know what he did next, but what I do know is that the envelopes were gone the next day. It was during preparations for Kawamata’s solo exhibition. As always, he showed up out of the blue, arranged things at breakneck speed, and left again for some other job. He came back late at night, and asked me to "put this two millimeters up" and "move that four millimeters to the left". Me I'd been working on that all day so naturally I was quite exhausted, but that’s how it works, because these little things make an exhibition much better.

The people I'm working with are certainly doing good jobs, and most of them are leaders in their respective fields, but there are countless episodes I could tell you about also with other creators than the three mentioned above. The positions and the works of creators, the things that they say and do, that’s what fills me with awe, excitement and respect time and again.

BankART Studio NYK

Compared to curators of other museums, we at BankART are a wild bunch without much education or experience. Nonetheless, we are eager to change the Japanese art world, so I'd really like to encourage all of you to learn. Please, go and absorb things, and respond to them. One thing I keep saying is that you cannot inhale without exhaling first. Even when swimming, you have to exhale in the water to be able to breathe. So go and allow yourself a kick-ass day once a month, work around the clock or do other big things. Just do it properly, then you'll get automatically to the core of the problem, somewhere deep down in the mud of your busy everyday. Go and swim that vast ocean and become aware that you're part of it.

That was the dream I had under the icy winter sky reflecting off the water of Yokohama Bay.