00:11
Alright, so, thanks Cori for coming again, for rescuing me during the month. Masako is busy.
And yeah, I don't know. I don't mind. I'm getting used to speaking on my own to the microphone,
but I don't love it. I feel like I have zero structures talking when I do that, so
appreciate you coming along, but
でもさ、久々じゃないんだよね。なんか、めっちゃ最近会ったんだよね。 でもさ、久々じゃないんだよね。なんか、めっちゃ最近会ったんだよね。
そう。 Yes. While I was back in Japan.
Most recently, we went to the Matisse cutout exhibition
at the 新美術館だっけ。国立新美術館。 In Roppongi.
そうそうそう。あの、ロッポンギのやつね。 As some of the listeners, I don't know if I spoke about this on my podcast,
but Matisse cutout series, the 切り柄のシリーズ is one of the first opportunities I got
working in 保存科学ワールド in the conservation science project, and I was at the time in New York
working on my senior thesis, and this eventually became part of my thesis to study the colorants
and pigments used in the Matisse cutout series, and I studied that. Like, it did a bunch of
characterization. It was actually a perfect undergrad project because nobody wanted to study
77 color sample using the same technique, so. But yeah, it was a good project for me,
and I really liked it. It was really nice to see what goes on behind the senior museum.
So I feel like every time I see Matisse exhibit, I feel like I need to pay kind of pilgrimage.
ね、なんか、あの、お参りじゃないけど、行って、お金払って、見て、ありがとうございますって気分になる。
03:02
So I dragged her along to this Matisse exhibit. That was quite fun, right?
Yeah, it was very nice.
What part of it did you like the most?
Um, I don't know. I just like the entire atmosphere, and it has a lot of, like,
different aspects of the artist. So we have, like, sketches, we have paintings, and statue,
and a cut out, and we even have a mimicking, is it a church? Um, installation from, um,
so that was beautiful too. And yeah, I really enjoyed to explore the life of himself and see,
yeah, different kinds of, like, art forms within one artist. So that was very fun.
Oh, so, like, have you never been to, like, a single artist kind of retrospective, like a big,
like an entire life storyみたいなexhibit?
I did, I did. I did quite a lot.
Okay.
And it was very nice to have you alongside with me too. Like, you, you know, you shared some
stories from your own research or, I don't know, from other information sources. So,
it's quite fun. It's not too academic, but a little bit like,
ちょっとプロフィッショナル。
I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to take you on your day off to be,
like, a 社会科見学部.
No, I really had fun.
Good, good, good. Um, I really liked, um, how spacious the exhibition was, because
frequently, at least in many of the museums in Japan, the gallery space is fairly limited for
特別展, which is why more people should go to the collection there, 常設展, because that's
usually, you know, well spaced out, not that crowded. But it seems like the business model,
at least of the ones, of the exhibits that come around Tokyo, is that they have a hugely
marketed and popular 特別展, and like, if people are interested, they would also
check out the 常設展, but most people only look at 特別展, and they get out, right?
06:06
そうだね。
I think, and I don't know how much of this is true for every single museum, but at least
for the museums I've worked at in Tokyo, the 特別展 had to happen in, like, a non-natural
light room, because of the insurance policy and safety reason, because we are earthquake-prone
museum, and some of the 特別展 happens in, like, the basement exhibition space, where there
is no natural light. And like, you know, sometimes that's all right, but most of the time,
artworks generally benefit from having exposure to natural light, at least the, you know, lighting
that mimics the natural light, right?
Even though there are so many amazing art that are able to come to Japan, artworks,
I feel really cramped in many of these places, because I feel like I need to follow the flow
of the rest of the viewers. Like, I am the person who wants to kind of go randomly, and then come
back when I think about something else, and then, yeah, it just, it feels like I cannot do that
most of the time. But here, I felt like this exhibit was spacious enough that
we were able to kind of roam around freely, right?
Especially the 霧江の section, like, the first couple of sections felt like there was a strict
順路, but the rest was just kind of like, explore. Yeah, the rest was just kind of like, go explore.
Yeah, that was pretty fun. I think I usually enjoy going to these exhibits alone.
Me too. I'm kind of fast in walking through the gallery, and a little bit similar. I come back to
some of my favorite ones after exploring the floor. But, you know, from the management
perspective, it is not very easy to let people go around the gallery with one entry
at some museums. At some museums, it's okay, and the others, we just have to restrict people to go
back and forth, especially when it's crowded. But if I'm allowed to, yeah, maybe I usually,
you know, pick a day to go to the museum all by myself, whenever I feel up to it.
09:09
So, that was kind of a special moment for me as well, in this point of view, that we decided a date
in advance, and let's go to this exhibition.
Yeah, that was kind of special to me as well.
Oh, I feel like I forgot to mention to the listeners that you also produce art exhibitions
as part of your job. I don't produce the exhibitions. How do you call it?
I don't know, like, maybe the title of my occupation would fall under the category of
producer, but I usually say I organize an exhibition. I do, I don't know, it's hard to
explain, you know, I'm not a producer-producer kind of person. What does a producer do?
I don't know, because I'm still exploring this field, but in my definition, producer
is a category of job, not necessarily the title of the job, and the producer takes care of all the
financial aspects of the entertainment, not necessarily entertainment, but say,
exhibition and theater, they take care of the accounting side, budgeting and financing and
everything, and we also do all the small jobs we really have to work on in order to open an
exhibition or a show. So, we make contract, we find the loans, and then we speak to the lenders,
and then we import the artworks or transfer the artworks from one place to the other,
and we also do marketing and promotion, we do ticketing, we do merchandising and everything.
That's like everything.
I thought, like, one of the funniest thing about going to museum exhibition
with you was how much time you spend in the merch area, the merchandise area,
because you actually have done in the past, like, the designing or like,
kikaku of the merchandise, right? Can you tell me more about that? Like, how does that work?
Because, I think I have to say this beforehand, but I work for entertainment, full profit,
commercial entertainment, we say, and art exhibitions are not exceptions. So, we have to
12:08
earn some money, and merchandising is one of the, you know, major ways of getting those extra income.
Ticket sales are not enough.
Not enough, not enough. Sponsorship, ticket sales, and we need some more.
I often do that. So, sometimes we just have to import already made products from overseas
and just sell it in Japan, but I'm kind of person who want to make something on my own.
So, I often say,
How do you get the ideas of, like, oh, I want...
No, I'm just learning, learning, learning by learning.
Or sometimes, I have a specific
like, uh...
It's pretty fun. It's a lot of jobs.
I was very surprised. I actually enjoy the merchandising job very much.
I never expected myself working for any art exhibitions.
So, I always wanted a job in theater management.
I happen to work for art museums a lot these days.
I enjoy learning behind the scenes of exhibition business.
So, yeah, it's fun, and merchandising is an important element within the business scheme.
Yeah, I just never thought that there's... I mean, I don't know why it didn't occur to me,
but of course, there's somebody deciding on the merchandise design,
15:00
you know, who to collaborate with and whatnot.
And you are one of those people.
Happen to be.
Yeah, and it's funny because, you know,
I usually only look at postcards for merchandise because, yeah, I just feel like...
You know me, I'm not the type to accumulate stuff.
I don't like collecting.
I love your room.
It's one of the biggest differences between us.
That's true.
You are quite the opposite.
Exactly. I go to your room and I'm like,
how are there so many useless items?
They're cute, but they're so useless.
They're just like, figurines and stuffed animals.
I'm just like...
Yeah.
How do you have so many of these things in your room?
I, you know, having moved around different countries,
different homes very frequently for the past, what, like 10, 15 years of my life,
I just naturally have less and less things.
And Hong Kong, you know, I've only been here for half a year or something,
so I haven't had a time.
And I always think about, you know, oh, I'm going to move out in a couple of years.
But, you know, I don't want to move out.
So, you know, I just have very few things with me.
And, you know, that's interesting.
Like, we're very different in some case, like some aspects.
But yeah, so, but the one thing I do collect, I guess, is museum exhibit postcards.
Because, you know, I feel like what spoke to you at that specific time might be different
if you go to the same exhibit at a different time in your life.
So I kind of want to remember that, you know, and I might not like it in a few years,
but it's just a postcard.
It doesn't take up a lot of space.
And it's just kind of like a, it's more, it's a cheaper way than buying an entire catalog,
you know, exhibition catalog, which is heavy also.
And shipping books around the world is kind of expensive when I'm moving around.
So I think a postcard is just right.
It also forces me to choose a few things out of the exhibit that I like, you know,
18:05
because if I like everything, that's like not the point of getting a postcard.
Like I need to pick like two or three.
If it's a really big museum, maybe I will let myself go a little bit more and buy like five or six of them.
But it forces me to choose, you know, which one I like and which one spoke to me.
So I like doing that.
So I just look at postcards and that's it.
And I don't really pay attention to anything else.
But you were going around like, oh, this mug cup is cute.
Or like this idea of like, you really liked something.
I forgot what it was.
I forgot.
But, you know, I became interested in so many different arts.
And...
That's like, you know,
a very peculiar part of Japan.
So we invite curators or sometimes other stores to Japan upon installation of the show.
It's like cultural exchange, you know what I mean?
Yeah, it's a fun part.
All right.
I think.
Yeah, I hope I hope the listeners enjoyed this kind of museum behind the scenes story.
Well, museum or art exhibit behind the scenes stories as much as I did.
That's it for the show today.
Thanks for listening.
And don't forget to say hello on our Autority Format, which you can find on Twitter or in the show notes.
Bye.
