The next big art market

For the last 10 years I’ve been involved in the art industry, researching, attending exhibitions and becoming personally acquainted with artists all over the world. Why is an artist a huge success in one country and unknown in another? Why is one country transfixed with contemporary art, while another has a passion for street art? Why do some regard oil paintings more than fine art illustrations and why on earth does anyone like a man who paints a soup can?

Over the years I’ve learned a great deal; I’ve even understood why people would buy a canvas that is of a single color. For anyone who knows me, I personally feel buying a painting of a soup can is one of the reasons children and adults shy away from attending exhibitions and why others think so little of artists.

I understand pop culture, but what I dislike are artists who spend two hours creating something that is simply mundane, farcical or what I like to say is “taking the mickey.” Does anyone really think sticking a group of chairs together has some special significance or that an artist was simply pushed for time and became lazy? Playing on his name to such a degree, all they end up doing, is diminishing art.

My issues with the absurdity of art is something of a personal joke, as there are so many artists out there without much ability. Please remember this is my opinion and you do not need to share it, but when you open your cupboard and see a can of soup, why don’t you take a seat, place it in front of you and stare at it for hours? Take it in, enjoy the can in all its glory. Wait for someone to walk in and see you looking at this tin of Campbell’s tomato soup and say to them, “It’s beautiful, it’s priceless” and he will reply “I just bought it for 12 pence with a coupon.”

Art is of course subjective and for myself it must evoke a feeling, improve the mood of a room or simply stop you in your tracks, while you look in awe.

Gustav Klimt, Francoise Nielly, Banksy, Van Gogh, Minjae Lee, Manabu Ikeda and many more artists do this for me.

After living in Japan for almost half a year, I’ve discovered such a wealth of talent that I decided to really get to know this internationally isolated, almost xenophobic art market.

Of course, you would have heard of a few names from Japan with Louis Vuitton and other brands creating some breathtaking collaborations. Not surprising, considering Japan is one of the biggest economies in the world and there are so few artists who can make it, even fewer who make it internationally.

After the dot.com bubble burst, people lost faith in the new Japanese art movement and instead reverted to European art.

The government in Japan offers no real support for artists or the art industry, looking at it as more of something that exists, but not anything significant to the economy. Compared to the auto industry, they would be right, but I don’t remember anyone saying to me “I sat on a bench a few weeks ago and looked at a Toyota Yaris for hours.” However, I do remember seeing an old man sat looking at some public art works by Choi Jeong Hwa, eating his lunch, others being “captivated” by a piece named “Circulation” by Minjae Lee and others who think David Cerny is “a living genius.”

All things have their place and it could only make Japan a better place, better than it already is, if the government supported the arts a little more.

I myself see such an amazing amount of young undiscovered talent, that I find myself just thinking about what's next from a few artists I’ve had the rare privilege to discover.

Chinese art might be all over the news, with low material costs and even lower labor costs. But Japan’s culture is extraordinary, traditional, kawaii (cute), innocent, sexual, raw, untamed, lemming-like (do whatever the guy next to you is doing), conformist, free, wild, exciting. Japan in essence, in my opinion, is a country of extremes and contradictions. Cat cafes, guinea pig petting, temples opposite skyscrapers, maid cafes, super-sized apples, S&M dungeons opposite pet stores and fine dining restaurants. My point in all of this is to explain that Japanese society, by its very fabric, creates an environment of extraordinary difference to any other country. The artists and art works will then of course be very different and exciting.

I think Japanese art will create a new wave of internationally known artists who will really start to come into their own. With the current sway toward nationalist party rule, the growing threat of China, America’s influence both militarily and culturally, South Korean island disputes, an aging population, an unstable political leadership and massive anti-nuclear demonstrations, the Japanese art scene is becoming a very interesting place to be.

© Japan Today