the National Art Center Tokyo, opened during my stay (the 21st to be precise). So I went to have a look. (Notice the wrapped tree!) An exhibition on material objects in 20th and 21st century art was the main exhibit, 500 works by Japanese and international artists from museums and collections here and abroad, taking up all three of the huge exhibition spaces on the ground floor. (There are two more floors besides.) A very rich and ultimately ovewhelming show. What a pleasure, deep within it, to find two unfamiliar and yet entirely familiar Morandis.The kicker, and the reason "Living in the Material World - 'Things' in Art of the 20th Century and Beyond" is the kickoff for this new museum, is that the museum has and will build
no collection of its own. Things - possessions - a standing collection - are (as some people supposedly say) so twentieth century! The museum of the future will be just a space. Makes me feel very with-it, spaced out and generally luggage-free as I am!Or am I one of the things floating around, from space to space? It certainly feels that way this month... I'm off to the airport, arriving Melbourne tomorrow morning. Interesting to be "going home" from the place I grew up (California) and a place I've been connected to long enough to become adult there (Japan) to a place where I've spent barely four months...
