Tokyo Gendai Prepares to Open as Japanese Art Market Heats Up

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Tuesday night in Tokyo Roppongi Neighborhood, under a sky threatening rain, artists, collectors, dealers and others gathered for the openings of the many galleries clustered in this bustling gallery district, including the local gallery ShugoArts And Taka Ishiias well as outposts for top foreign companies such as Perrotin. There was champagne and canapés, and, in Perrotin’s boutique, next to his main gallery on the first floor, frozen desserts. Upstairs, Perrotin was opening a third space, in the style of an intimate salon.

It was the first night of what one might call Tokyo Gendai week after the art fair which opens its second edition on Thursday in the Pacific Yokohamaa convention center located about an hour south of central Tokyo. Locals were present for the openings Magnus Renfrewthe founder of the fair, as well as a London gallery owner, Sadie Colesa participating dealer.

Reports from last year’s inaugural edition were generally upbeat, but as anyone in the art fair business knows, it’s the second year that’s the real test. This time around, there are a few complicating factors: the global art market is in a different place than it was in 2023, with the work of many hot (and hot to sell) young artists having cooled considerably, and the strength of the dollar against the yen, while a boon for Americans coming to Japan to shop, could be problematic for dealers selling in dollars to locals.

Yet art fairs are a long-term game, and the fact that Perrotin is expanding and, more importantly, that Pace Gallery The fact that the upcoming Tokyo branch is opening this week ahead of its September opening indicates that the Japanese capital is buzzing with activity. Renfrew probably knows this better than most art fair owners: he was the founding director of Art HK, which eventually became Art Basel Hong Kong.

In 2007, there were no mega-galleries in Hong Kong. Gagosian Gagosian opened in 2011. Today, all the major department stores have spaces there. The movement observed today is moving away from a centralization of the Asian market in Hong Kong and towards regional markets: note for example that Gagosian will be present for the first time in Seoul on the occasion of the third edition of the fair. Frieze Art Fair there, hosting an exhibition of new paintings by Derrick Adams in an annex space (APMA office) at the Amorepacific Museum of Art, at the headquarters of Amorepacificthe cosmetics brand run by ARTnews Top 200 Collectors Suh Kyung-baePace opened a permanent branch in Seoul in 2017.

What can be said for sure about Japan is that there is a new generation of art collectors here who, as one dealer told me, have been inspired to acquire art partly by the example of entrepreneurs. Yusaku Maezawa which notably bought the record for 110.5 million dollars Jean-Michel Basquiat He sold the painting at auction in 2017, when he was just 41. Maezawa’s influence is mixed, the dealer told me. “He had a big impact, and sometimes in a negative way because he was a speculator, but there are legitimate people in Japan who collect thoughtfully.”

And then there is the old guard, like the powerful Mori family, now largely represented by Yoshiko Mori. 5,500 square feet of Pace, Thomas Heatherwick– The Tokyo gallery designed is in the new Azabudai Hills development, a project of the Mori Building company. It was Minoru Mori (Yoshiko’s father, who died in 2012) who founded the Mori Art Museum in 2003, which catalyzed the development of Mori’s Roppongi Hills. The Mori Art Museum opened an Azabudai branch in November, with an exhibition of Olafur EliassonIn Tokyo, as elsewhere (such as in New York’s artsy Chelsea district), the art market and real estate development are closely linked.

At the first Tokyo Gendai in July, the big news was that the government was revising tax laws to make it easier for galleries and the fair to operate. This year will give us a chance to gauge how that situation is evolving. “The Japanese art market is lagging behind where logic would dictate,” Renfrew told the Art Journal Last year. The delay will be determined this year and in the years to come.