The event was organized to address an existential question that haunts Japanese artists: Is art possible when there’s only a limited domestic market to support it?
Illustration by LIE FUJISHIRO
ㅗTOKYO — On July 21 and 22, the art collective Chaos Lounge held the first Contemporary Art Black Market at the “art factory” BUCKLE KÔBÔ in Tokyo. The event was organized to address an existential question that haunts Japanese artists: Is art possible when there’s only a limited domestic market to support it? Indeed, Japan’s art market is severely underdeveloped in comparison to that of China, Britain, or the United States, representing about one percent of the global market. Some say this stems from the failure of the government and powerful businesses to foster Japanese artists during the country’s economic “bubble” (1985–1992); instead, they preferred to purchase astronomically priced French Impressionist and Postimpressionist paintings. Now, young Japanese artists are looking for new ways to generate a market that don’t simply replicate the institutions of the global art world in a local context. This, according to Yohei Kurose, who spearheaded Chaos Lounge, proves the underlying motive for the inaugural art black market:
A market won’t be born from people without magic, no matter how many of them gather together. Nor will it come from imitating already-established international exhibitions or art fairs.
First, there’s material that’s almost trash. Contemporary art starts here. Artists work magic on this trash, gathered from all over the place. Some of this magic fails, and some of it succeeds. What succeeds becomes treasure and what fails remains trash … a place where you can witness this [process] with your own eyes should be called a “market.”
Stall by SAIAKU (NAZE/takuya watanabe takuya/Yusho Morimoto) X MES (all photos taken by the author for Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)
Chaos Lounge’s black market — essentially a bazaar with various artists peddling their work as pure commodities — holds particular significance in 2018 in light of the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs’ proposed plan to create a division inside public museums — called the “Reading Museum” — to stimulate the domestic art market by holding art auctions. This plan has been disparaged by prominent contemporary artists such as Koki Tanaka and Yoshitomo Nara, among others; in their view, the plan seems to indicate the government’s failure to recognize the decline of public museums in a global art world increasingly dominated by galleries, art fairs, biennials, and private museums. In contrast to the heavy-handed “Reading Museum,” Chaos Lounge’s black market represents the possibility of developing a domestic market through a decentralized, artist-run initiative.
