With the opening of Tokyo Midtown on Friday, the Art Triangle Roppongi concept is now complete. Comprised of the Mori Art Museum, the new National Art Center (NAC) and the elegant new Suntory Museum of Art -- part of the Midtown project -- the idea of a new precinct for art in Tokyo is ready to be tested.
To be sure, the Mori over the last five years has hosted some of the more exciting and controversial exhibitions in Tokyo, bringing both newly found exhilaration to the Japanese art world and attention to Roppongi as a new source of culture. While some love the freedom of the Mori's catch-all approach, and others find it to be overreaching, that there are such discussions being held suggests that it is doing something right.
The newness of the NAC makes for a more open question. As Monty Dipietro has pointed out in his column New Art Seen on these pages, the center has started, as the Mori did, as a museum without a collection. The Mori has gone to efforts to reverse the situation, purchasing works from some of the shows that have graced its walls.