What S'pore can learn from Art Week Tokyo

Moving beyond art fair as market platform to longer-term synergies

- Shawn Hoo

Held in Japan's oldest private art museum dating from 1917, Art Week Tokyo's (AWT) packed centrepiece exhibition was its gravitational centre.

Titled AWT Focus, the show held from Nov 5 to 9 brought together works from across sprawling Tokyo's siloed art scene, as well as global art from Amsterdam to Zurich.

AWT co-founder and director Atsuko Ninagawa said the flagship selling platform was inspired by her visit to Singapore's gallery-initiated boutique art fair S.E.A. Focus.

The tightly curated selling platform focused on Southeast Asia was started by STPI Creative Workshop & Gallery.

Ms Ninagawa was inspired to create a similar initiative that could benefit Tokyo by connecting galleries together via common issues in art history and by educating collectors, who are often not as cognisant of art history when purchasing art.

"AWT Focus is a way to share that narrative and discourse with collectors, so that they know what they are buying and can be responsible for what they are buying," she said.

S.E.A. Focus, which started in 2019, was then thrust into the spotlight when the annual tentpole fair Art Stage Singapore was abruptly cancelled.

Just as well that Ms Ninagawa the owner and director of Tokyo-based gallery Take Ninagawa was recently named the 62nd most influential person in the art world by London-based ArtReview magazine launched the annual AWT in 2021 as a way to invent a model beyond the mega art fair and its accompanying "fairtigue".

In an interview with The Straits Times and other international media during the recent fourth edition of AWT, Ms Ninagawa said she started AWT as a response to the dearth of platforms for private and public galleries to interact, which she saw as important for the long-term synergy of Japan's growing art scene.

"I thought that if we got together and shared what we have, then we could also encourage the market to be a little bolder," she said.