NEWS - 2026.02.27
Event Transcript: “A Dialogue Between Market and Critique”
At the Early Highlight Viewing of Modern Legacy: An Important Japanese Collection of 20th & 21st Century Masters, which brings together works from an important Japanese single-owner collection, we welcomed critic MINAMISHIMA Ko for a dialogue on how to read the collection as a whole. Using the unique setting of the auction preview —a singular occasion—as a point of departure, the conversation explored the appeal of the works and the collection from both market and critical perspectives. This transcript captures the exchange, including the productive differences between the two viewpoints, offering insights to deepen our understanding of artworks, artists, and exhibitions.
Event Overview
Dialogue Event “A Dialogue Between Market and Critique”
Date: Thursday, January 29, 2026 | 18:00-19:30
Venue: Daikanyama Hillside Forum
Speakers: MINAMISHIMA Ko (Art Critic) and KAKU Mio (Deputy General Manager, Sales Planning Department, SBI Art Auction)
Speakers Profiles
MINAMISHIMA Ko
Art Critic. Completed a Master’s degree in Western Art History at the Tokyo University of the Arts and pursued doctorial studies in aesthetics. Former curator at the Yokohama Museum of Art. Currently active as an independent writer and lecturer, organizing art writing coursed and producing the YouTube channel Bijutsu Dōdeshō. Founder of Koreport, a project reviewing permananent and collection exhibitions across Japan. Currently contributing to the “Kenbunroku” column in Kyodo News.
KAKU Mio
Deputy General Manager, Sales Planning Department, and Auctioneer, SBI Art Auction. Completed a Master’s degree in Aesthetics and Art History at Keio University. Joined a domestic art auction house in 2008; involved in the planning and management of auctions in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In current position since 2021. Since 2019, Lecturer in “Art History from the Perspective of the Market” at Aoyama Gakuin University.
1. First Impressions: The Texture of a Personal Collection
KAKU Mio:
Mr. MINAMISHIMA, drawing on your experience overseeing acquisitions at a museum, how did you find this preview?
MINAMISHIMA Ko:
Rather than being assembled under a clearly defined institutional policy, as in a museum collection, this collection appears to have emerged from the gradual accumulation of relationships, interests, and aesthetic sensibilities over time, giving it a certain historical depth. There were also a number of smaller works, such as lithographs and drawings, that conveyed a tangible presence distinct from museum holdings, suggesting a collection shaped by long years of personal engagement.
Chronologically, the core of the collection appears to lie in the 1950s and 1960s, while also extending outward toward their peripheries.
2. The Preview as Exhibition: Hierarchies of Value and the Premise of “Dispersion”
MINAMISHIMA:
At the center of the exhibition space stands Léonard Tsuguharu FOUJITA’s Portrait d'Hélène Franck, which also occupies the highest price tier in the sale. The clarity of this hierarchy of value, shaped by price, marks a clear distinction from a museum exhibition.
KAKU:
A preview provides prospective bidders with the opportunity to examine works in person before making a decision, with the ultimate goal being acquisition and ownership. While a higher price does not necessarily equate to greater quality, the structure of an auction makes it essential to consider how major works are presented and how they may ultimately be placed.
In terms of display, we prioritize clarity so that conditions can be properly assessed. Works by the same artist, or those from the same period or related movements, are installed in close proximity. We also make use of the venue’s natural light, aiming to create a setting in which visitors can imagine living with the works in their own spaces.
MINAMISHIMA:
In general, museums tend to emphasize comprehensiveness, or a sense of historical continuity. When gaps appear, an exhibition can easily take on the character of a display built around a single “treasures.” An auction, by contrast, proceeds with the understanding that the works will be dispersed through bidding. The exhibition is not premised on preserving the collection as a permanent whole. In that sentence, the underlying logic of exhibition-making is fundamentally different.
The totality before us exists only at this moment. Its singularity is unusual. To be able to discuss something as elusive as a collector’s activity in this limited window of the time is itself a rare experience. In other words, what we are speaking about now is something that will soon cease to exist in this form.
3. Reading the Works as a Group: Themes Across Periods
3-1. The Late 19th to Early 20th Century: Peripherality and the Creative Potential of Belatedness
MINAMISHIMA:
Looking at the main exhibition room, what first strikes me is the presence of artists such as Edvard MUNCH, Léonard Tsuguharu FOUJITA, Giorgio DE CHIRICO, Egon SCHIELE, and Tamara DE LEMPICKA —figures who suggest a certain sense of peripherality.
MUNCH was Norweigian; SCHIELE worked in Vienna; and FOUJITA, though associated with the École de Paris, was often regarded as a minority within it. DE CHIRICO, born in Greece and later active as an Italian artist, did not align himself with any particular movement, sustaining instead his own distinctive mode of Metaphysical painting.
Another interesting angle emerges when we look at their birth years. For example, when PICASSO painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in 1907 at the age of twenty-five or twenty-six, DE CHIRICO was nineteen and SCHIELE was only seventeen. In other words, while they were still in their teens, artists roughly ten years their senior were already inaugurating movements such as Cubism. Futurism also was launched shortly thereafter with MARINETTI’s Futurist Manifesto in 1909. Confronted with such major developments, it is so hard to imagine that the younger generation did not ask themselves: what, then, was left for us to do?
Broadly speaking, there were three possible paths. One was to become a follower: in the case of Cubism, for instance, to pursue a Cubist manner or to survive through a compromise between Cubism and a more realist mode of painting. Another was a return to classism, a position that in effect rejected the avant-garde. The third was to carve out an independent path, establishing one’s own distinctive style, often in relative isolation. From my perspective, DE CHIRICO followed precisely this third path, developing a singular language that moved in a direction separate from the avant-garde. It is interesting consider in other contexts as well: what if the same situation were unfolding today? Or, taking 1960 as a reference point, what did those regarded as “belated” choose to do?
KAKU:
From the perspective of “peripherality” or “belatedness,” one might say that the collection itself—formed in Japan, in what has historically been considered the Far East—also finds a parallel when viewed within a Euro-American framework.
MINAMISHIMA:
DE CHIRICO’s Il grande metafisico in this exhibition appears to be a three-dimensional iteration of the oil painting of the same title from 1917 in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Observing such repetitions, I sometimes feel that the recognition of his Metaphysical painting may have confined him to the expectation that this was what he was meant to produce. It may have been a life shaped, in part, by negotiation with the market.
I studied Giorgio MORANDI during my university years, and it is interesting to consider that DE CHIRICO, Carlo CARRÀ and MORANDI all engaged with Metaphysical painting in the 1910s before moving in markedly different directions. DE CHIRICO continued in a related approach, while CARRÀ moved toward to return to classicism and MORANDI is said to have advanced into still life painting.
In that sense, one might think in terms of different paths among those regarded as a generation “belated” in relation to the avant-garde: a DE CHIRICO type, a CARRÀ type, a MORANDI type. Tracing how artist’s practice evolves over time remains a subject of interest, both for critical and for academic study.
3-2. The Early Postwar Years: An Existential Mood and Other Possibilities
MINAMISHIMA:
The works of Georges ROUAULT and Bernard BUFFET seems to carry the existential mood aligned with that of Japan in the 1950s and 1960. There is a strong sense of the atmosphere of that period.
KAKU:
Both artists have long attracted collectors in Japan, and their works appear relatively often at auction. It seems that the owner of this collection was also drawn to them, as multiple works by each are included in the collection.
MINAMISHIMA:
Yes, and that further reinforces the sense that this is a collection formed in Japan.
If we focus on a specific work, the fact that Bernard BUFFET’s Rue de village dates to 1946 is particularly significant. It was painted immediately after the war, at a time marked by material shortages, the loss of many works, and circumstances in which painting itself was not easily pursued. Works from this period are relatively scarce, and the survival of a painting from 1946 carries a certain rarity.
In this exhibition, it is installed alongside a still life from 1953 (Nature morte aux bouteilles), where the bold black outline characteristic of what we now recognize as BUFFET’s mature style are already firmly established. The 1946 work, by contrast, precedes that consolidation. The style has not yet fully settled. In that sense, and perhaps not unrelated to DE CHIRICO’s trajectory, I see in it the possibility of “BUFFET before he became BUFFET.”
It opens onto broader questions: how an artist becomes who they are, what defines an artistic identity, and how that identity relates to collectors and the market. In that respect, it serve as an entry point for reflection on these issues.
KAKU:
Maybe that BUFFET, like DE CHIRICO, faced his own challenges.
MINAMISHIMA:
ROUAULT’s work, dated between 1940 and 1948, still strongly bears the marks of the war. What I also found particularly interesting is that both BUFFET and ROUAULT place a “road” at the center of their compositions. In one case, it is an empty road; in the other, it is a road occupied by Christ.
In both works, one can sense reflections of the prayerfulness, or perhaps existential anxieties of the immediate postwar period. The juxtaposition of these two pieces in this exhibition is therefore especially compelling.
3-3. Abstraction / Figuration: Rethinking the Binary
MINAMISHIMA:
The 1950s and 1960s are often described as the period of abstraction, led by movements such as Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism. The surface distinction between abstraction and figuration, however, is not especially meaningful. Works that appear abstract often contain figurative motifs, while others that seem representational can feel abstract depending on tonal balance and compositional structure.
In NAMBATA Tatsuoki’s Buildings in March, for example, the rounded green form in the upper right recalls a motif that might belong to Metaphysical painting. Several art-historical references appear to intersect with the work. At the same time, it retains a handcrafted quality that differs from a more strictly Constructivist conception of abstraction. When the period is viewed as one in which diverse forms and motifs coexist, the depth of the collection becomes easier to understand.
KAKU:
While the collection includes figures such as MUNCH and FOUJITA, it also embraces postwar abstraction of this kind. That breadth is part of its appeal, yet at the same time it feels attentive to key moments within each period, which I find particularly compelling.
MINAMISHIMA:
What matters here is not to reduce the discussion to a simple division between abstraction and figuration. For example, in the case of YAMADA Masaaki, it is more productive to see the development from his still life paintings to the Work series as a continuum, or as a set of variations within a sustained practice.
3-4. After GUTAI: Experiments in Structure and Reassessment
MINAMISHIMA:
One of the core aspects of this collection lies in what came after Gutai, particularly in the work of artists associated with the movement. Rather than Gutai itself, what stands out are works by artists who, after encountering developments abroad, returned to Japan and confronted the question of how to alter the very structure of painting. For example, DOMOTO Hisao’s Solution de Continuité No.19, produced about two years after his award at the 1964 Venice Biennale. By layering black over a red ground, the work reveals a conscious effort to reconsider the relationship between figure and ground.
Since the 2013 Guggenheim Museum exhibition “Gutai,” there has been a renewed interest in the movement. It is important, however, to consider what that reassessment actually entails, and, quite simply, to examine the structural logic of the works themselves. Attention must also be given to artists such as MORI Mami, DOMOTO’s wife, whose practice reminds us that the contributions of women artists remain an essential part of this history.
In terms of the collection, the collector appears to belong to roughly the same generation as these artists. That shared contemporaneity lends a particular depth to the overall grouping.
3-5. America: The Print as a Medium
MINAMISHIMA:
Jasper JOHNS’s SAVARIN (ULAE 183) was one of the works that made a stronger impression in person than in photographs. At first glance, JOHNS appears to employ preexisting imagery in a Pop Art manner. At the same time, by incorporating encaustic and preserving the trace of the brush, he allows materiality and surface texture to coexist with the image. His work does not settle entirely into either image or substance, but remains in a state of tension between the two. The quality is fully present in this lithograph, and its scale gives it a strong presence within the exhibition.
KAKU:
It is often said that museums tend to prioritize paintings, making prints more difficult to include. How do you see the coexistence of paintings and prints here?
MINAMISHIMA:
Museums do collect prints. The important question is how the medium of print functions within an artist’s practice, especially when the artist is not primarily known as a printmaker.
For example, some sculptors approach printmaking as an extension of their sculptural work. They engage with it with the same sensibility as constructing three-dimensional forms, rather than producing prints merely for sale.
In the case of JOHNS, his underlying concerns remain consistent even when the medium changes. What appears one way in painting emerges differently in print. If prints are understand as variations rather than secondary products, they can illuminate the artist’s practice more clearly.
3-6. Minimalism / Projects: The Work in Planar Form
MINAMISHIMA:
Next are planar works by artists who are not primarily associated with painting in that format, such as those related to Minimalism or figures like CHRISTO. I found this section unexpectedly enagaging.
For instance, KUWAYAMA Tadaaki’s 4 Red Squares (TK1425-65) aims for a static material presence. At this scale, however, slight distortions and traces of the hand become visible, and a certain human quality emerges. These works belong to what might be described as painting after the so-called “age of painting,” exploring how a Minimalist sensibility might be pared down even further. They also reveal the difficulty of evaluating such pracices in the post-Minimalist context.
In the case of CHRISTO’s work, it can be understood as documents related to larger art projects. At the same time, they possess a clear artistic quality. There was, of course, a practical dimension as well, in that such works were sold to support the funding of larger projects. Even so, once translated into planar form, they do not merely as explanatory documents.
4. Provenance and Networks: The Relationships Carries by Works
KAKU:
In a typical auction, works are consigned by numerous sellers, which inevitably introduces an element of chance into the lineup. A single-owner collection, by contrast, reflects the aesthetic judgement of one collector. A curatorial perspective emerges from that individual eye, and with it, a sense of narrative.
From a market standpoint, one of the major attractions is the clarity of provenance. Knowing whose hands a work has passed through is directly connected to questions of authenticity and condition. Works that have remained in a single collection for many years without appearing on the market —so-called “fresh” works—tend to be highly valued.
Provenance is significant not only in its most recent form but also in its history over time. For example, James ROSENQUIST’s Untitled is distinctive in that it was once owned by his contemporary, Andy WARHOL. In the exhibition, it is intentionally placed alongside WARHOL’s works (Seated Cat and Flowers in a Vase), subtly suggesting the relationships indicated by its provenance.
Connections among artists are equally fascinating. YOSHIHARA Jiro, for instance, is said to have pursued his own expression style following Léonard Tsuguharu FOUJITA, eventually leading to Gutai. In this way, a collection reveals not only the individual value of each work but also the network of relationships that surrounds them.
MINAMISHIMA:
Were all the works in this sale acquired directly by the collector? I wondered whether any might have been inherited or received in some other way.
KAKU:
The works were primarily acquired through purchase. Where the place of acquisition is known, it is noted in the catalogue.
5. On Collecting
KAKU:
I consider collecting as a reflection of the collector. It can begin with something as simple as identifying what you like or dislike and using that as a starting point to explore your own preferences more deeply. Because auctions operate on the secondary market, they bring together a wide range of works, almost like a department store, allowing collectors to search broadly for what resonates with them. Once you discover an artist you like, it can be meaningful to learn more through galleries that represent that artist.
Each acquisition begins as a single point. As those points accumulate, the way the collection is perceived gradually shifts. Over time, and within the rhythms of daily life, the works can come to feel like companions. Eventually, a collector may look back and think, “This is what I was contemplating during that period of my life.”
MINAMISHIMA:
During I was working at the museum, I once entered the name of the Taishō-era writer SATO Haruo into the collection database as part of a research inquiry, and a portrait photograph by KIMURA Ihei appeared. The museum had not intentionally collected works related to SATO; it had most likely been accepted as part of a group of works connected to KIMURA and had simply remained there, unnoticed.
Such works may later be rediscovered by someone else, giving rise to entirely new ideas. A museum storage facility can feel like a restless sea, where connections—approached from different angles by different people—continue to surface without end.
What struck me most when I first began working at a museum was this strange presence of the collection storage: a space where possibility and a certain sense of unfathomable coexist. Even those who assembled the collection cannot foresee how it will be reinterpreted in the future. That unpredictability is precisely where its fascination lies.
KAKU:
Collecting can sometimes become difficult to stop once it begins. At the same time, I have also encountered clients who seem to lose interest entirely after parting with even a single artwork. There is something intriguing about that impulse toward completion —and about how, once that sense of completeness is disrupted, interest can suddenly fade. It is a certain strangeness I have often felt when handing single-owner collection sales.
6. Q&A
Q: Earlier, you mentioned that having BUFFET and ROUAULT as part of the collection feel “Japanese” in some sense. Are there artists or tendencies that tend to be favored differently in Japan or overseas?
A:
MINAMISHIMA:
What I meant was simply that artist such as BUFFET and Antoni CLAVÉ were particularly popular in Japan around the 1960s. By “Japanese,” I was referring to the way an existential mood, along with approachable subjects such as landscapes and still life paintings grounded in everyday experience, may have resonated with people in Japan resonated with people in Japan who were studying painting or just beginning to engage with art. Such works may have felt relatively accessible and emotionally relatable.
KAKU:
From a market perspective, regional differences are quite visible. Taking KUSAMA Yayoi as an example, collectors in Europe and the United States often favor the Infinity Nets series, while in Asia the pumpkin motifs tend to be especially popular. The former are frequently valued for their art-historical significance and long-term influence, whereas the latter appeal through their immediate visual iconography. In addition, there are cases in which postwar Japanese artists attract strong bidding from Europe and the United States. Works that align clearly with Euro-American art-historical frameworks tend to draw greater participation from overseas collectors.
Q: If you were to choose one work from the exhibition—setting aside practical considerations—which, would it be?
A:
MINAMISHIMA:
As my personal preference, I admire the Jasper JOHNS print, though it is slightly large for my taste. I would probably choose NAMBATA Tatsuoki’s Buildings in March. As I mentioned earlier, it contains a range of different elements. It also occupies a position with the exhibition that naturally draws the eye.
KAKU:
In that sense, the placement of works within the exhibition is quite important.
Returning to the earlier question, there does tend to be a preference among Japanese collectors for smaller works. Collectors in Europe and the United Sates often have more spacious homes and can accommodate larger works without hesitation. There is also a tendency to value scale, monumentality, and visual impact.
Q: I think that this exhibition represents only part of the collection. Does it allow you to imagine works that have not been shown here?
A:
MINAMISHIMA:
When I see the collection chronologically, there do appear to be certain gaps. The 1950s, for instance, give the impression of containing a relatively strong presence of figurative works. It makes one wonder whether there might be additional examples related to Cubism, abstraction, or even Minimalism that are not included here.
KAKU:
I see. In fact, another sale from the same collection will be held in May. That sale will focus on primarily on Japanese art, and the collector holds a considerable number of works in that field. I hope that, on that occasion as well, viewers may gain a broader sense of the diversity of the collection.
MINAMISHIMA:
At the same time, it may limit thinking of the collection only seeing the works currently at hand. In museums, acquisitions are often conceived in relation to what is already there—what might be added to enrich or complicate the existing holdings. Any collections rarely begins from zero.
Placing even a single artwork outside one’s existing collections can alter the way the collection as a whole is perceived. If a work by MORANDI were present here, or a FONTANESI’s work, the exhibition might take on a different character. For those who collect, perhaps part of the fascination lies in how different collections resonate with each other, continually altering the way the collection is understood.
Q: Are there any conditions that determine whether artists or works will endure over the long term?
A:
MINAMISHIMA:
Perhaps it has to do with the presence of a consistent underlying structure—something like an operating system—within the work and discourse, rather than merely at the surface level. This may sound unusual, but with truly interesting artists, I sometime finds my thinking, “They are saying essentially the same thing that they said thirty years ago.” That does not mean they are outdated. The times change, but their core logic remains intact and can explain everything with the same logic even if they are surrounded by different and new circumstances. If it is about today, I might speak in terms of AI. Even artists change mediums for works, if they maintain their core or fundamental ideas, someone will be able to decipher them at some point.
KAKU:
From a market perspective, the decisive factor is the strength of the surrounding stakeholders―the density of the network formed by contemporaneous artists, scholars, museums, galleries, and critics, both in Japan and abroad. Equally crucial is where that network connects. The depth of those ties, and the positions they occupy within the art world, strongly affect the likelihood of long-term recognition.
As you mentioned earlier, the reassessments prompted by the Guggenheim Museum’s Gutai exhibition had a visible impact on the market. Following that renewed attention, works by artitsts such as SHIRAGA Kazuo quickly became the focus of intense competition. This was not accidental; it reflected a broader movement within the art world, in which key stakeholders chose to direct their attention toward the artist and the movement. Ultimately, where an artist is positioned within the art world—and how many meaningful points of connection they have—plays a significant role in determining whether they endure.
MINAMISHIMA:
The difference in how we have answered this question may, in fact, speak to the very purpose of this dialogue. It is a productive difference.
I agree that human networks are essential. Whether there are people who continue to look at work and care for them is crucial, not only intellectually but also in terms of their physical preservation.
Regardless of whether we collect or not, all of us here are, in some way, part of the network. For that reason, a certain sense of responsibility may be important.
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