Art changes with the times, so why shouldn't art galleries? Some say that Japan's unique "rental gallery" system, where young artists pay hundreds of thousands of yen per week to show their work, is on its last legs. If so, is it a case of good riddance? Or does this represent the retreat of a perfectly good Japanese system in the face of a Western one?

What, exactly, does the rental in rental gallery mean?

"Forty-thousand yen per day, ¥240,000 for six days, Monday through Saturday," reels off Mitsuko Makura, who has directed Nabis Gallery in Ginza for almost a quarter of a century. Makura says that the Nabis rental fee hasn't changed since 1985, when the gallery, which has an area of about 50 sq. meters, first opened.