This week brings some good news and some bad news to Tokyo's contemporary art scene. The good news is that a group of galleries that have been sharing a building in Shinkawa since January 2003 have relocated en masse, and now all boast significantly bigger spaces. The bad news is that the galleries vacated their remote and inconvenient location only to land in an even more obscure place. Their new home is across the Sumida River in east Tokyo, a 10-minute walk from Kiyosumi Shirokawa Station in Koto-ku.
The only saving grace of the Kiyosumi location is its relative proximity to the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art. But while it would be super if the whole area were to evolve into a contemporary art community -- as New York's West Chelsea did in the 1990s -- that's just not going to happen here, given the smaller art market and the social and economic barriers against loft lifestyles.
But let's look at the upside: We have eight good galleries on three floors of an old warehouse. The ceilings are high, the lighting is good, and most of the go-to gallerists here have international connections and customers. It ain't West Chelsea to be sure, but it's the closest thing Tokyo has ever seen.