Tokyo show tests if fans will come
It’s a blockbuster exhibition, featuring some of the biggest names in Japan’s contemporary art scene. But will people flock to galleries in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic?
That’s the question on the mind of Mami Kataoka, director of the influential Mori Art Museum, which reopens on Friday after a five-month hiatus with one of its most high-profile Japanese art shows in years.
“We live in a time when we are asked, ‘What is the role of museums and what is the role of art?'” Kataoka told AFP at a press preview of the “STARS” exhibit this week.
The exhibition was supposed to open in April, running through the summer to attract visitors in town for the Olympics, with works by leading Japanese art figures like Yayoi Kusama and Takashi Murakami.
But the coronavirus has forced a year-long delay of the Games, and the museum closed its doors in
