What is a museum?

Before I assumed my position at the Chuo University, Faculty of Law, in April 2024, I lived in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture. Located in the Hokuriku region of Japan, Kanazawa is home to one of Japan's most popular museums: the 21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. When we think of museums, we might imagine them as places to dress up and visit on weekends to enhance our cultural knowledge. This image is historically grounded when viewed from the perspective of museum studies. It has been noted that museums, by displaying valuable cultural artifacts to the general public and allowing people to experience them in the presence of others, have played a role in producing well-behaved citizens.^[1] The 21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa is also engaged in this role. As an institution that plays a part in the art policy of Japan, it is expected to be instrumental in cultivating an audience that appreciates contemporary art and a market that consumes contemporary art.^[2]

On the other hand, the authority of museums has not always been used to produce docile subjects. Indeed, museums also have an aspect of challenging existing oppressive norms and power. As an example of this ambivalence of museums, albeit perhaps an insufficient one, I would like to focus on and discuss two overlapping exhibitions held at the 21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa: "The Timeless Imagination of Yves Klein: Uncertainty and the Immateriality," which ran from October 1, 2022, to March 5, 2023, and "Sea Lane―Connecting to the Islands," which ran from November 3, 2022, to March 19, 2023.

Apolitical

The Klein exhibition featured works by Yves Klein, who is known for his use of a patented special blue pigment called International Klein Blue (IKB). While Klein's works using IKB are popular in Japan, the overly abstract nature of his art has been criticized as a politically devoid escape from reality. For example, Gordon Bennett, an Australian artist who appropriated and used Klein's work in a way to denounce colonialism and the genocide of Aboriginal people, sharply points out through his work "How to Cross the Void" that oppressed people do not have the same luxury of escaping from harsh history and reality into abstract blue as Klein.^[3] However, the exhibition at the 21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa did not clearly present the problematic nature of Klein's work. Instead, Klein was simply featured as a popular contemporary artist, and visitors were primarily encouraged to appreciate his works as beautiful enough to be displayed in a museum and thus commercially valuable.

Exhibitions as critique

Meanwhile, the Sea Lane exhibition was being held during the same period in another gallery space at the 21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. These two exhibitions had separate entrances and exits, and could be viewed independently, so they were not directly related. However, perhaps because of this separation, the Sea Lane exhibition seemed to possess critical themes that were not present in the Klein exhibition. For example, the latter included the following caption for one of the exhibition galleries:

"Despite having their own abundant nature and complex cultures, many islands in the Asia-Pacific region have a history of forcible colonization by great powers and imperialist nations. What becomes of the customs and history of these islands' residents when their land and zones of habitation are seized or occupied? The work in this gallery causes the viewer to consider how [sic] engaging with the place one was born and raised so as to[sic] connect to the future of that place."^[4]

Sea Lane also features works by Aboriginal artist Judy Watson, who uses metaphorical expression to problematize the dispossession of land from indigenous peoples. In this way, works were displayed as if to supplement the abstract nature of the Klein exhibition.

Vague ambivalence

However, it should be noted that this role of supplementation was still incomplete. In fact, while the above caption suggests questions like "What will happen?" it does not examine the cruel situation created by colonialism or consider how to overcome it. In this regard, the 21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa relied solely on the criticality of each artist's work and the imagination of visitors, and did not engage in concrete consideration. From the perspective of a museum's function of producing subjects, it appears that the 21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa is not necessarily satisfied with merely nurturing art aficionados who simply appreciate contemporary art; yet, it does not seem to be encouraging the emergence of a subject that actively resists colonialism.

How to live with museums

In recent years, there has been active global discussion on the perspective of museum activism. In addition to the conventional roles of museums in storing, managing, and exhibiting cultural artifacts, the perspective of museum activism expects museums to serve as influential public institutions that are actively committed to addressing social issues.^[5] The need for museums to engage in social justice activities was also affirmed at the 25^th ICOM (International Council of Museums) General Conference held in Kyoto in 2019.^[6] Museums are more than spaces to display beautiful things; instead, they are institutions with the authority to shape people's perceptions of what is considered beautiful and what should be valued.

Amidst these trends, it seems that influential Japanese museums such as the 21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa are also trying to fulfill their responsibilities. However, it appears that progress may be slow, and many museums have not yet taken on the role of spearheading the movement. Consequently, it is necessary for museum researchers and weekend museum visitors to properly appreciate not only the exhibits, but also the history and future of museums and what museum activism entails.

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[1] Refer to Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (Abingdon: Routledge, 1995), etc.
[2] Refer to Handout #6 "Statement of Opinion: The Current State of Contemporary Art in Japan" at the 1^st Meeting of the Planning Research Committee, Subcommittee on Cultural Properties, Council for Cultural Affairs, Agency for Cultural Affairs (held on October 26, 2020).
[3] Refer to Jude Jones, "Klein, Jarman, and Bennett's Angelic Conversation: Thinking About the Place of Art in Crisis." The Cambridge Language Collective (n.d.).
[4]21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, "https://www.kanazawa21.jp/files/exhibition_2022/SL-handout-en.pdf" (n.d.), etc.
[5] Refer to Robert R, Janes & Richard Sandell (eds). Museum Activism (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), etc.
[6] Refer to Report on ICOM Kyoto 2019 (n.d).

Tomoaki Morikawa／Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Chuo University
Areas of Specialization: American Research, Museum Research, and Sociolinguistics

Tomoaki Morikawa graduated from the College of Liberal Arts, International Christian University, and completed the Master’s Program in the Culture and Representation Course at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He also earned a Master’s in American Studies from Brown University and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Prior to his current position, he served as an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Foreign Language Studies at Kanazawa University.

His main research themes include militarization of memory, decolonization of museums, and critical language pedagogy.

His main works include “(II) Legitimating Filipino Teachers’ English on Webpages for Japanese Learners of English” (TESOL Quarterly, 2022), “Heroes’ Missions: Journey of Heroes and Japanese American Settler Colonialism in Hawai‘i” (Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2022), among others.

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