Art is often likened to a mirror, suggesting that what viewers really want is a glimpse of themselves. In Japan, this frequently means that any exhibition of Monet, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec -- just about any Impressionist or post-Impressionist painter, really -- is sure to elicit a few catalog essays on the dusty old ukiyo-e print that appears in a photograph of the artist's atelier.
Such efforts to highlight a "Japanese connection" usually feel forced and overstated, so it was with some trepidation that I visited the exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art Hayama that pairs the name of the greatest sculptor of the 20th century -- Alberto Giacometti -- with a comparatively unknown Japanese intellectual -- Isaku Yanaihara. What could have possibly driven the curators down there on the Kanagawa coast to give the lowly Yanaihara equal billing with the great Giacometti, except the need to localize the exhibition for the consumption of Japanese audiences?
Curator Mina Lee is quick to counter such skepticism.