Echoing the choice of Koki Tanaka — a conceptual artist — for the Japanese pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale this year, "Why Not Live For Art? II: 9 collectors reveal their treasures" at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery suggests that art collecting in Japan has taken a conceptual turn.
Curated by Hori Motoaki, the show features artworks from nine Japanese collectors, identified only by their initials. They might be the same age as the collectors from the first "Why Not live for art?" show in 2004, but they have somewhat different tastes. Motoaki describes this year's works as reflective of the "second generation of commercial art galleries in Tokyo" — galleries such as Taro Nasu, Misako & Rosen, Aoyama Meguro and Aritaniurano, who have encouraged Japanese collectors to engage with wider conversations about the state of contemporary art outside the archipelago.
As with the show in 2004, individual spaces have been constructed for each collection, housing a total of 206 artworks. If our visual cortexes weren't already accustomed to being completely overloaded (thank you Instagram, Tumblr, and the Internet in general) this shoulder-to-shoulder layout of artworks might have been more frustrating. Teppei Kaneuji's "Splash and Flake" (2009) and a wall of clock and sushi typologies by Paramodel, are two examples that felt particularly choked, despite being in the largest room.