We Are Tomodachi Summer 2018

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24lexandra Munroe bringsAsia to America as theSenior Curator of Asian Art at theSolomon R. Guggenheim Museumin New York. At the age of 13, herfamily moved to Japan with herfather’s work. Her father’s interestin history and culture combinedwith her mother’s career as an artistled to weekly excursions to visittemples and museums in Kyoto,which was near their home in AshiyaCity, Hyogo.“Many of my parents’ friends wereartists and cultural fi gures. We wereoften around the so-called firstgeneration of great American scholarson Japan, who had been living inthe country since the postwar AlliedOccupation. This was my gatewayto Japanese culture, both classicand modern.”Upon returning to the UnitedStates, Munroe attended BrownUniversity. Summer breaks providedher irresistible opportunities toreturn to Japan and participate in theOomoto Summer Seminar in Kameoka,Kyoto. There, she remembers, “Istudied tea ceremony, Noh dance‘shimai,’ ceramic art, and calligraphy.Each experience further kindledmy interest in Japanese arts, as wellas in the philosophy and spiritualitybehind them.”While studying at DoshishaUniversity in Kyoto, she became aresident lay disciple at the DaitokujiZen Temple. That experienceafforded her time and opportunitiesto train with Rinzai Zen monks andto appreciate the temple’s richhistory and culture, deepening herknowledge of Japanese art.The year 1982 marked a pivotalmoment in her career, when, inTokyo, she met Rand Castile, thefounding director of the JapanSociety Gallery in New York. TheJapan Society was then the leadingcenter for Japanese arts and culturein America.“I was hired on the spot as acurator, and to my surprise, my fi rstjob was to organize an exhibitionof Ushio Shinohara, one of Japan’sforemost avant-garde artists, whohad been living in New York sincethe late 1960s,” explains Munroe.“In the 80s, however, most Japaneseartists, including major fi gures suchas Yayoi Kusama and Yoko Ono,were struggling to gain recognitionfrom mainstream Western museums.After the Shinohara show, I startedinterviewing almost all of theJapanese artists who were living inNew York. I slowly realized thatthere was a story that had not beentold, a history that was not known,and I wanted to make it visible.”The result was her groundbreakingexhibition, Japanese Art After 1945:Scream Against the Sky, fi rst shownat the Yokohama Museum of Artin 1994 and later at the GuggenheimMuseum SoHo in New York andSan Francisco Museum of ModernArt. This legendary exhibitionhelped encourage young academicsto focus on the art of contemporaryJapan, and its in-depth cataloguehas long served as the de-factotextbook on this subject.Munroe says that not only historicalfigures but also today’s artists inJapan are equally worthy of attention,including Takashi Murakami, EiArakawa, and the art collectiveteamLab, to name a few. “If anything,Japanese artists’ wildest ideas aboutthe future and their ability to shedlight on the darkness of humanAGRASSROOTS AMBASSADOR Friends of JapanThe pioneering curatorof Japan’s postwar art: Alexandra MunroeBringingJapanto the WorldInstallation view ofSadamasa Motonaga,Work (Water), 1956,from the exhibitionGutai:Splendid Playgroundat Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum,New York, 2013Photo by David Heald© Solomon R.Guggenheim Foundation