Tokyo Gendai Gets Its Foot in the Door

Overall sales were modest, but international galleries were excited to present their works in Tokyo for the first time, hoping to lay the foundations for future success.

An eager crowd poured into the VIP preview of Tokyo Gendai at the Pacifico Yokohama yesterday, two decades after the city's last international art fair, NICAF, closed its final edition.

The world's biggest galleries aren't here—there's no Gagosian, David Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth, Pace, Thaddaeus Ropac, or White Cube—but that left space for some wonderful presentations, especially from galleries in the region.

Of the 73 exhibitors, Beijing's Tang Contemporary Art had the biggest booth, a 120-square-metre monster with works by emerging artists as well as heavy hitters like Ai Weiwei and Yue Minjun.

By the end of the VIP preview, Executive Director Vivienne Har said they had sold almost all of the works in the US $10,000–30,000 range, roughly covering their costs. She said the fair was relatively expensive for galleries—comparable to Art Basel Hong Kong—and she hoped costs would come down.

Har did applaud Tokyo Gendai for the quality of the production, bringing in strong collectors, and securing an exclusion from paying a 10% tax up front to bring works into Japan—a cost that would've been especially prohibitive when it came to Lego pieces by Ai Weiwei priced at US $450,000 and two zodiac animal heads that are part of a set of 12 priced at US $5 million.

One of the most popular booths belonged to Tokyo's Kaikai Kiki Gallery, which lured people in with three pieces by MADSAKI — an oversized Skeletor action figure, a massive 'SEND NUKES' text painting, and a deftly sprayed and dripped painting of a baseball game.

International Sales Manager Kayla Dahee Kim said Kaikai Kiki sold out all 12 works by anime-inspired painter Mr., and they were well on their way to selling out ceramic pieces by Otani Workshop. She said the result was beyond the gallery's expectations, with good engagement from overseas collectors, especially from nearby Korea and Taiwan.

Another Tokyo gallery, NANZUKA, was behind the fair's sole featured installation, Ryuichi Ohira's The Circuit (pictured top), a working slot car set that zips between roughly carved and brightly coloured wooden sculptures.

Their booth featured fabulous works, including masking tape grotesques by Gary Card, skateboard deck voodoo dolls by Haroshi, and Hajime Sorayama's descriptively titled Sexy Robot Floating Bronze (2022). Among the works they sold was a large painting by Stickymonger.

Gallery staff said they were glad to introduce their works to collectors from Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, as well as Japanese who were new to collecting, and might not have visited their gallery.

Some exhibitors we spoke to had no sales to report at the end of the first day but were philosophical about how much could be achieved when showing in a new market for the first time.

Art Assembly's Magnus Renfrew was likewise taking a long-term view.

The 73 exhibitors were fewer than the 80–100 exhibitors Art Assembly hoped to attract when the fair was announced in June last year. In a press conference before the fair opened, Renfrew said the fair had a 'solid lineup of galleries'.

While Tokyo galleries have lent their support, Tokyo Gendai is not yet an event that the city's institutions have fully rallied around. The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, for instance, is closed for installation during the fair.

Renfrew told Ocula Magazine that it took four years to build that sort of buy-in after establishing Art HK in Hong Kong. He gave the impression that he would work to build the fair year on year.

Tokyo Gendai has not been the instant smash that Frieze Seoul was last year, but in the heat of midsummer, beside the sea, and beneath the towering Cosmo Clock 21 ferris wheel, it feels like it has time to grow. —[O]