Present Encounters : Papers from the conference of the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, 1996

Masahiro Ushiroshoji The Asian Art Show of Fukuoka and the New Asian Art Gallery (A History of the Fukuoka Asian Art Show: When a Festival Becomes a Museum) I have been working at a local Museum for nearly twenty years, which is a municipa l Museum and located on Kyushu Island in southwest Japan. My country had closed its door to the outside for 200 years since the 1 7th century. But when American war ships came in 1 853 and forced it to open , suddenly it put up the slogan of 'Datsua-Nyuou' (which means stop being a member of Asia , and become a European) . And then , Japan began pushing for rapid Western isation. It has that kind of h istory. In my country , the idea that 'Japan is a member of Asi a , ' has been especially emphasized for the last 1 0 years. I feel as if it has been overly emphasized , and that, on the contrary, we Japanese truly do not consider Japan a member of Asia . The m indset of the majority of Japanese is not so far from that of the 1 9th century. Even now, we are not completely free from the dualism of 'unadvanced Asia' and 'advanced West.' Moreover, Japan today never considers itself to be an 'unadvanced Asian country.' Because nowadays, unlike i n the 1 9th century, Japan is a country of wealth , high technology, and well-popu larised things like satellite Karaoke and Ni ntendo TV games. But anyway , it is a good thing that we Japanese are at least making efforts to recognise that we are a member of Asia , even if that motivation is in the economic situation. The Fukuoka Art Museum opened in 1 979 . The inaugural exh ibition was an Asian Art Show. In this talk, I will qu ickly look back on the history of the Asian Art Show at the Fukuoka Art Museum , as it tried to become a member of Asia for the first time in the circle of Japanese art museums. I think it would be a useful example for dealing with Asian art. At that time, major cities in Japan had begun to set up art museums one after another. Every museum tried to collect and exhibit Western and Japanese modern art, and the work of local artists as wel l . For 2 , 000 years, Fukuoka has been a n entrance for exchanges with Asian countries, especially China and Korea. So the Fukuoka Art Museum has tried to establ ish its ind ividuality as the 'cu ltural center for Asian artists'. Of course, beh ind that, there was the notion of de-Western centralism. I am not trying to show off our Museum's foresight. Rather, I want to confess that we were immature and ignorant. For the curators, as well as the audience , we were all captu red by an exoticism i n t he first stage. People gathered to see 'unadvanced' and 'rare' objects from Asian countries. There was an idea i n the minds of people that Japan was unadvanced compared to the West, and even more 'unadvanced' were other Asian countries. This exoticism is related to a dualism of 'tradition' and 'contemporary', or 'West' and 'East'. At that time Asian art, i n searchi ng for its identity, depended on its own tradition too much. That was apt to produce a stereotyped 'Asian vision' which the West wanted . I n one sense, the h istory of the 'Fukuoka Asian Art Show' has been a process by which the audiences, the artists and the curators have tried to surpass the exoticism and the dualism . 'The Asian Artists Exhibition Part I ; Modern Asian Art- I ndia, China and Japan' was held in 1 979, the opening yea r of the Museum. The following year the 'Asian Artist Exhibition Part I I ; Festival ; Contemporary Asian Art Show 1 980' was held . This exhibition focused o n Asian contempora ry art. Nearly 500 artists from thirteen Asian countries participated . When I look at these participating artists now, I realize a lot of modern masters in Asian art are i ncl uded. But at that time the audiences, even our curators, could not real ise how important these artists were , and in what context these works were made. No one understood. We just looked at them out of curiosity. This exhibition , as the title indicates, was a festival rather than an 95