The Mori Art Museum is to reopen on Saturday, April 25, 2015, following an extensive upgrade taking around four months.
In the eleven-and-a-half years since the Museum first opened in October 2003, a tide of globalization has swept through not only the worlds of business and politics, but the cultural sphere as well, art in particular.
Looking around Asia we find booming contemporary art markets in Hong Kong and Singapore, and Asian art also a major presence at international auctions and art fairs. This October will see the opening of a massive national art museum in Singapore, while in Hong Kong a arge-scale contemporary art museum will make its appearance in 2018.
As the globalization of contemporary art thus becomes increasingly diverse and complex in character, many contemporary art museums are facing the new challenges of how best to understand a variety of art from all around the world, place that art in its historical context, and introduce it to the wider public.
In light of all these, on celebrating our first decade in October 2013 we revised the Museum's mission and vision in an attempt to clarify our own role and direction as part of the Japanese, Asian, and global art scenes.
To implement this new mission and vision, in this latest upgrade we have added hi-tech features to the exhibition spaces allowing us to cater flexibly to the growing diversity of contemporary artistic expression. In addition, as well as launching three new smaller programs, we will continue to create settings for visitors to experience contemporary art on a deeper level and from multiple angles, via a range of initiatives that include overseeing the selection and the installation of contemporary artworks in the Museum Café & Restaurant.
The aim is to offer a new model for art museums in today's world, from our own perspective, contributing to the realization of a more creative, more innovative approach to "Art + Life" in the spirit of our founder Mori Minoru, who aspired to build a Museum that would "be unique, be ifferent from others, and keep challenging new things."
Nanjo Fumio, Director, Mori Art Museum
Mock-up image of "Simple Forms: Contemplating Beauty" installation