Toward a “Nation-State of Culture”: Public Art Museums and Japan's

Toward a “Nation-state of Culture”: Public Art Museums and Japan’s National Identity and Image in the 1980s Yanni Li Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Prerequisite for Honors in East Asian Studies Wellesley College under the advisement of Professor Katharine H.S. Moon Spring 2020 © 2020 Yanni Li Abstract In this work, I examine the case of Japan and how the Japanese state utilized public art museums in the 1980s and early 1990s to shift their national image to that of a “nation-state of culture” (bunka kokka). Museums, especially public ones, are politically implicated institutions. Contrary to their appearance of permanence and insulation, museums are reflective of larger political, economic, and social changes in a society. Drawing upon the theories of Carol Duncan, Pierre Bourdieu, and Tony Bennett, this thesis examines art museums as institutions that facilitate identity and image-formation. Essentially, there are two related types of formations at questions here—the first is how nation-states use museums to shape their national identity and international image, and the second is how individuals form their own social and cultural identity through encounters with the museum. This thesis lies at the intersection of politics, sociology, cultural studies, and museum studies. In this work, I offer a way to unpack and understand the socio-cultural phenomenon of the “museum boom” in Japan in the last three decades of the twentieth century by placing it in the context of the international political implications of museums and framing it as a continuity of Japan’s national identity and image construction efforts since the Meiji era. 2 Acknowledgements My best decision in college was to take Professor Kathy Moon’s Nation-building and Nationalism in East Asia course during my Junior year. When I worried that I had no prior experience in political science, Professor Moon encouraged me to bring my knowledge of East Asian arts and culture to the class instead of focusing on my deficiencies. Essentially, this led to this thesis. No words can describe my gratitude toward Professor Moon, who is my East Asian Studies major advisor, thesis advisor, mentor, and role model. Thank you for always encouraging me to pursue my academic interests, supporting me in this endeavor, helping me improve, and most importantly, inspiring me to pursue further studies in East Asian politics and culture. I am extremely grateful for Professor Robert Goree, Professor Peggy Levitt, and Professor Mingwei Song, who not only serve on my thesis committee but also conversed with me about my topic throughout my thesis process. I would also like to thank all the Wellesley professors with whom I have taken classes or discussed my academic interests. I am especially indebted to Professor Heping Liu, whose enthusiasm sparked my interest in East Asian art during my first year at Wellesley. I would also like to thank the Davis curators who have inspired me to think deeper about a museum’s role in society. It is the liberal arts setting of the college that allowed me to explore a variety of fields and led me to this interdisciplinary project. There has been many people involved in this project, I offer my most sincere thanks to all of you. Particularly, I would like to thank Aki Hoashi, who graciously agreed to an interview, offered such insightful remarks, and sent me extremely useful materials. I would also like to thank Kana Yamada and Mai Ogiuchi, who helped me summarize and interpret difficult Japanese texts, and Dafni Diamanti, who offered to do transcription work under really tight time constraints. A big shout out to the wonderful research librarians and Interlibrary Loan librarians at Wellesley, who helped me get my hands on important sources. Finally, I am forever grateful for my family and friends, who supported and encouraged me during difficult times. I could not have completed this thesis without all of you! 3 Table of Contents Introduction 5 Chapter I Museums as Political Strategy in the West and East Asia 15 i. Europe and the United States........................................................................................17 ii. South Korea..................................................................................................................25 iii. Taiwan..........................................................................................................................39 iv. Singapore .....................................................................................................................42 v. International Outlook of Museums...............................................................................45 Chapter II The Institutionalization of Exhibitions in Japan 50 i. Exhibitionary Culture in the Edo Period and the Transition to Meiji............................51 ii. Japan’s Participation in World’s Fairs..........................................................................57 iii. The Birth of the Museum in Japan................................................................................62 iv. The Development of Fine Art Exhibitions: the Ministry of Education Art Exhibition..70 v. Colonial Projects, Imperial Subjectivity, and the National Taiwan Museum................72 Chapter III Japan’s Cultural Policy and Public Art Museums 79 i. Developments of Museums in Japan in the Immediate Post-war Years........................82 ii. Japan’s National and Regional Cultural Policies in the 1970s and 1980s.....................86 iii. Public Art Museums and Civil Society.........................................................................99 iv. Case Study: the Yokohama Museum of Art................................................................108 Conclusion 121 Bibliography 126 4 Introduction When I visited Japan in March, 2019, I went to the Vermeer exhibition at the Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts. I had heard about the Japanese people’s appreciation for Western masters, but I was not expecting what I encountered upon entering the museum. In the dimly lit exhibition galleries, a throng of people gathered in front of each painting and observed intently. The visitors followed a regularized route to view the exhibition, making it impossible for me to turn back and revisit a painting at the beginning of the exhibition. While there were young people, the majority of the visitors I saw were middle-aged to elderly women and men, who, with their glasses, mini telescopes, and audio guides, studied the paintings almost piously. I was stunned after completing the “tour,” as I had never seen such a high level of concentration and orderly viewing in North American or Chinese museums. I experienced this phenomenon again in the summer at an exhibition on Gustav Klimt organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, where I lined up for half an hour just to enter the galleries and could barely see the entirety of each work because of the crowd. The two anecdotes serve to illustrate the importance of art museums to the general public in contemporary Japan and show that they are popular destinations. These special exhibitions are important community events, not unlike the local matsuri (festivals), and build up anticipation well before their openings through a variety of publicity that circulates in communities. At large municipal or national museums, we can often see flyers for other special exhibitions in the region, thus creating an ecosystem of exhibition-going and art-viewing. Noriko Aso, in her book Public Properties: Museums in Imperial Japan, comments on the phenomenon of museum-going in Japan by remarking on a paradox: “Standing in queues for long periods to eventually get the chance to peer over someone else’s shoulder to catch a 5 particular glimpse of a glassed-in object is not necessarily an obvious source of pleasure.” She further asks, “[W]hy did these people choose to spend their leisure time in this manner?”1 Behind this question lies the conscious effort of the Japanese government since the Meiji period (1868- 1912) to establish museums as important cultural institutions based on the Western model and to cultivate the habit of museum-going among its citizens as part of the nation’s modernization. In July of 2019, during my conversations with Professor Michio Hayashi, Professor of Art History at Sophia University, and with Ms. Aki Hoashi, manager of exhibitions at the Yokohama Museum of Art, a phenomenon that came up in both conversations was the rise in the number of public museums in Japan in the 1980s and early 1990s, right at the end of the so- called “Japanese Economic Miracle.” Japan enjoyed an unprecedented degree of economic growth and prosperity in the decades following the American Occupation (1947-1952), elevating the country from a vanquished empire into not only a regional but an international economic superpower. However, the growth rate started to decline in the 1980s and the Japanese economy went into a recession in the 1990s as the asset bubble punctured (Figure 1).2 Interestingly, it is also during this decline in the growth rate that we see an increase in the number of public art museums in Japan, mainly municipal and prefectural ones, some of which are dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Many of these museums boast an international art collection and strive to organize exhibitions of internationally renowned artists. This phenomenon can be partially explained by Japan’s shift of focus from economic achievements to cultural development in the 1980s, a decade often referred to as the

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