Art Week Tokyo Launches Curated Sales Platform

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Art Week Tokyo will feature a new curated section when it returns for its third edition from 2 to 5 November.

AWT Focus will draw works from galleries participating in Art Week Tokyo to present a critical re-examination of the Japanese art canon. The works will be available for purchase through the galleries.

Atsuko Ninagawa, Cofounder and Director of Art Week Tokyo, said the programme combines ‘the narrative depth of a museum presentation with the spontaneity of a market framework.’

‘This new format will give emerging collectors a sense that they too can help shape history, first through developing their own vision and then through sustained patronage and giving,’ she said.

Shiga Museum of Art Director, Kenjiro Hosaka will oversee the inaugural AWT Focus exhibition at the historic Okura Museum of Art on the grounds of the Okura Tokyo hotel.

Altogether, 50 galleries and art institutions are taking part in Art Week Tokyo this year.

Participating museums include the National Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, the Mori Art Museum, and Watari-um.

Thirty-nine Tokyo galleries are taking part in the art week including newcomers, Tomio Koyama and ShugoArts.

They join well established Tokyo galleries such as Taka Ishii Gallery, Ota Fine Arts, and SCAI The Bathhouse, multinational galleries including Blum & Poe and Perrotin, and ‘third-generation galleries’ like Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Misako & Rosen, Nanzuka Underground, and Take Ninagawa.

Emerging galleries such as Kana Kawanishi, Leesaya, Ken Nakahashi, and Kotaro Nukaga, will also join, alongside artist-run spaces Fig. and 4649. —[O]

Main image: The AWT bus service connected all Art Week Tokyo venues across six routes. Photo: Art Week Tokyo.