OASIS IN THE DESERT: THE KAWAGUCHI MUSEUM OF ART

Atrium, Photo: Shigeo Ogawa

For many years, the vast urban area North of Ueno and Ikebukuro and south of Saitama City has been something of a "cultural desert," with few major centres for the arts. But this all changed on September 12th this year, with the ribbon being cut on the Kawaguchi Museum of Art. 

A mid-sized venue in the Greater Tokyo Metropolis area, the new venue has around 800 square meters of exhibition space, which puts it within punching distance of other important suburban venues like MoMAS (c. 1500 square meters) and the Setagaya Museum of Art (c. 1800 square meters). 

But why has it taken so long for this to happen? Why has this vast, sprawling, heavily-populated area just North of Tokyo's centre been so culturally deprived for so long? Partly this is because of the boundary that runs along the great Arakawa River that divides the Tokyo Prefecture part of our metropolis from the Saitama Prefecture part. Kawaguchi is just inside the Saitama Prefecture part.

Also, in Japan, riversides have traditionally been regarded as inauspicious places, liable to flooding and usually reserved for the lower classes to inhabit.

This is exactly the kind of place Kawaguchi has been in the past—a down-to-earth working class area that is today also home to one of Japan's largest migrant communities.

Just a station or two from Kawaguchi station you will find the area nicknamed "Warabistan," where many Kurdish would-be refugees eke out a living. So far, only one of them has been granted full refugee status, while the rest exist in a kind of stateless limbo. 

Façade, Photo: Shigeo Ogawa

Cynics might say that the local authority, Kawaguchi City, has thus opened the new museum in an attempt to improve the image of the area and to counter the "down-market" associations of  Warabistan, especially at a time when there are tensions about Japan's growing diversity.

But the simple fact is that Kawaguchi has also long been an upwardly mobile area, with redevelopment powered by its proximity to central Tokyo and its relatively cheaper land prices. The population of the area is now a more socially diverse group, and the area has long felt the need for enhanced cultural facilities. 

Designed by the Kohyama Architectural Research Institute, headed by 89-year-old architect Hisao Kohyama, the building incorporates four design concepts: (1) hill-shaped placement using existing terrain, (2) an atrium that can serve as the city’s "living room," (3) a setting adjacent to the area's central park and an already existing centre for the performing arts that facilitates a continuous pedestrian flow, and (4) "clear forms, characteristic materials, and light." 

Exhibition Room 1, Photo: Shigeo Ogawa

The inaugural exhibition "Mika Ninagawa: The Light of the Beginning" focuses on one of Japan's big hitters in the world of art-photography, who just happens to be a local girl having spent her childhood in Kawaguchi City.

Emerging in the 1990s, Ninagawa was part of what was called the onnanoko shashin wave ("girly photo" wave), typified by young women who took as their subjects everyday life, fashion, and, of course, themselves, usually with an intimate snapshot-like eye that encouraged parasocial engagement. Ninagawa's art riffed on themes of opulence and female identity at a time when the wheels were coming off the Japanese economic miracle, lending it a degree of ironic poignance. 

The show has two parts: "Self-image" which focuses on her self-portraits over the years, while the second part, "Beautiful Days," nostalgically documents her time with her father, director Yukio Ninagawa, in his final years.

This presents a more muted counterpoint to her usual lavish and exuberant imagery. The exhibition runs until the 29th of November.

From "Beautiful Days" 

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