Art in Japan>Contemporary Art 1930-2004>Emotional Site (long version)

Original articles on art, artists, architecture, exhibitions, galleries, museums and cultural institutions around Tokyo, Japan.

Emotional Site (long version)

by John McGee

Installation by Yoshihiro Suda (image courtesy the artist)

Shitamachi is usually considered the stronghold of the traditional arts in Tokyo. But for nearly 20 years Sagacho, an old town neighborhood across the Sumida River from the Nihonbashi  and Kayabacho districts, has been one of the city's most important centers of contemporary art. 

That's about to change. The landmark Shokuryo Building is being demolished. Home to Japan's first alternative art space, Sagacho Exhibition Space, this atmospheric three-story, half-block-wide brick building has helped launch the careers of Japanese artists like Yasumasa Morimura and Satoshi Hirose, introduce foreign artists like Sylvie Fleury and Anselm Kiefer, and establish important Tokyo gallerists Tomio Koyama and Taro Nasu. 

The Shokuryo Building in Sagacho
(courtesy Ryuji Miyamoto)

The Shokuryo was built in 1927 as a rice market and, until recently, housed a variety of food-related offices (shokuryo means “food”). Its charm comes from high ceilings, a huge courtyard, arched windows and its general lived-in appearance. In Europe it might be nothing special. In Tokyo, it's one of a kind. 

In tribute to the illustrious building before its demise, four galleries that have been residents over its all-too-brief contemporary art period will display new and old work by 36 Japanese and international artists in a huge, nine-day group exhibition known as “Emotional Site.” With most of the other tenants having already moved out, “Emotional Site” will take over nearly the entire building with established artists like Hiroshi Sugimoto and Paul McCarthy alongside younger ones like Taiji Matsue and Candice Breitz. Installations will invade hallways, the basement and the roof. Many artworks, of course, will be displayed in individual rooms illuminated by natural light streaming through the Shokuryo's large mullioned windows. 

This celebration of the Shokuryo also indirectly acknowledges the people who have cultivated it as an art center. Kazuko Koike opened the first gallery, Sagacho Exhibition Space, on the third floor in 1983. Tomio Koyama Gallery opened in 1996 and Taro Nasu Gallery in 1998, both on the second floor. When lack of funding forced Sagacho Exhibition Space to close in 2000, Shugo Satani from ShugoArts and Atsuko Koyanagi (who used to work for Koike and actually discovered the building) of Koyanagi Gallery formed a unique collaboration, Rice Gallery, to keep the third-floor space alive. The two gallerists took turns holding exhibitions in the spacious room decorated with an arch of embossed rice plants at one end. 

Installation by Paul McCarthy (courtesy the artist) 

Everyone seems a bit disappointed to lose the Shokuryo, but acknowledge it was inevitable. Attractive pre-war architecture in Tokyo just can't compete with the new and banal. See the Shokuryo and its significance before its old world profile is replaced by the bland anonymity of a high-rise mansion.

The Emotional Site exhibition was held Nov 2002 at the Shokuryo Building in Sagacho, Tokyo, Japan.

©2006 John McGee

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