SYMPOSIA

Mori Art Museum International Symposium
M+ International ｘ Mori Art Museum
“What Do Collections Mean to Museums?” Day 1
* NOT open to public

The main activities of a museum are to collect, preserve, exhibit, publish, and diffuse, but the policy and scope of acquisitions vary depending on the museum’s area of focus, financial resources, and history in its local context. Japanese museums have long organized exhibitions that consist of loaned or newly commissioned works, but in recent years there has been an increase in curatorial efforts to reactivate permanent collections. At the same time, more and more attention has been given to modern and contemporary practices in non-Western countries, eliciting the need for a new definition of museum collections. While a number of museum collections originated with private collectors, Japan has a long history of private as well as public collecting, a history that can serve as a benchmark as well as a productive counterpart to museum collections that have emerged more recently in other parts of Asia.

Scheduled to open in West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong in late 2020, M+ is a new museum of visual culture building international collections of visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture. In anticipation of the opening of its building, the museum is launching, through partnerships with other institutions around the world, the M+ International initiative, which aims to create a platform to discuss current issues facing museums. As part of this project, M+ and the Mori Art Museum are organizing a symposium - consisting of a two-day invitation-only, closed conference followed by a public discussion - to reconsider the meaning of museum collections. What should museum collections be in our contemporary context? By focusing on institutions in the Asia Pacific region as case studies, the symposium intends to stimulate creative discussion on the potential of museum collections today.

Dates

Wednesday, September 25 and Thursday, September 26, 2019 * NOT open to public

Attendees

Seki Naoko (Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo), Kuroda Raiji (Curator and Executive Director, Department of Operation and Management, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum), Horikawa Lisa (Deputy Director of Collections Development, National Gallery Singapore), Gridthiya Gaweewong (Artistic Director, Jim Thompson Art Center), Miki Akiko (International Artistic Director, Benesse Art Site Naoshima), Aaron Seeto (Director, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara), Suzuki Kota (Curator, Pola Museum of Art), Sugaya Tomio (Deputy Director, Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka Planning Office), Ota Kayoko (Curator, CCA c/o Tokyo, Canadian Centre for Architecture), Jihoi Lee (Curator, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul), Kasahara Michiko (Vice Director, Artizon Museum), Uematsu Yuka (Curator, National Museum of Art, Osaka), Matsunaga Shintaro (Curator, Yokohama Museum of Art), Yanagisawa Hideyuki (Chief Curator, Ohara Museum of Art), Hosaka Kenjiro (Curator, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), Kitazawa Tomoto (Chief, Museum Materials Section, Museum & Library Group, Musashino Art University), Doryun Chong (Deputy Director, Curatorial and Chief Curator, M+), Yokoyama Ikko (Lead Curator, Design and Architecture, M+), Kataoka Mami (Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Mori Art Museum)

Organizers

Mori Art Museum, M+

M+ Website: https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/