The Mori Art Museum in Roppongi is not yet two years old but the two new Mori shows that opened last weekend -- "The Elegance of Silence: Contemporary Art from East Asia" and "The World is a Stage: Stories Behind Pictures" -- suggest a space now comfortable with its potential and its limitations.
"Silence" features work in a variety of media by 26 artists from Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan. As the title suggests, it takes as its point of departure an apparent cliche about East Asia, that image of Zen and minimalism found in the Western imagination but not in the streets of Tokyo or Seoul.
The first room of "Silence" is about as good a display as you are going to see in any museum. Replete with art, the atmosphere nonetheless remains light, the pieces complementing one another with uncommon effect. It turns out the Mori did the layout of the room and this show according to the principles of feng shui, the 3,000-year-old Chinese art of arranging toward an invisible and elusive harmony.