During my childhood I was surrounded by artists.<\/h4>\n\n\n- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Was it your father that first opened the gallery?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Yes. My father opened the Tokyo Gallery in Ginza in 1950 and initially hung Western-style paintings by artists like Tsuguharu Fujita and Soutarou Yasui who studied in Paris. Later, at the very end of the 50\u2019s, he went to Paris himself. At that time, there was a major abstract impressionist movement going on called Art Informel. My father returned to Japan confident that the rest of the 20th century would be devoted to abstract art. After coming home, he decided to focus on abstract paintings in Japan, and introduced the latest European pieces in the gallery. Lots of young artists and even Issei Miyake in his student years started coming around.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- No kidding! Did your father originally work in the art world?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- He came from a poor family, so he started an apprenticeship at an antiques shop immediately after higher elementary school. Then he went to fight in the war. The war was followed by the dissolution of the Zaibatsu (financial combine), and a period when a new population of rich people emerged. My father started working as a mediator for selling paintings from the previous rich people to the new rich people.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- He must have been a connoisseur. Did he also deal in antiques?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- No, he didn\u2019t. After going independent, he started selling western-style modern art to art museums. He would bring paintings to the Oohara Museum of Art (in Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture), collect money, and then go spend it in Kyoto (laughs).<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Really?!<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Well, he had the experience of surviving the war, and must have considered himself lucky just to be alive, right? So he probably never thought about accumulating wealth and just wanted to enjoy his money. So, ever since I was little, there were always starving artists boarding at our home.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- No kidding.<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- They would come to my father for pocket money or a meal. So I often ate meals with these artists. Taro Okamoto sometimes came for a meal with us.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Unbelievable! (laughs)<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Yes, they were odd men \u2013 definitely not normal adults (laughs). I doubt my brother and I would be surprised by anyone we meet, after being surrounded by strange people from all over the world when we were kids.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n\n
![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/Connect_19_01.jpg\")
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/Connect_19_02.jpg\")
<\/p>\nInterior of Tokyo Gallery<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/Connect_19_03.jpg\")
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nIt\u2019s important to expose kids to lots of good music and art.<\/h4>\n\n\n- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Art seems somewhat difficult to decipher. Can you give some tips for appreciating art?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- I tell visitors that art is made up of three things: materials, techniques, and concepts. That means, what kind of materials were used? What techniques were used to create it? And, what exactly is the artist trying to say?<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- The part about what they are trying to say seems the most difficult. If the viewer cannot catch the meaning of the piece, is that their own fault, or the fault of the piece itself?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Consider this \u2013 most Japanese people seeing Mount Fuji think it is beautiful, right? Why do we think so? It\u2019s because we learned to think so. We saw Mount Fuji with our mother and father and they said it is beautiful. That is a type of learning. Art appreciation is always learned, and the viewer\u2019s power of understanding depends on how much they\u2019ve learned.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- I see! It is the same with music. If you play Mozart for aboriginals in Africa, they do not think it\u2019s good at all. You only come to recognize something as music after learning through various experiences.<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Exactly. And those experiences are cultivated in the environment. For example, if you brought aborigine children to our home, they would grow up the same way I was. So, it is not inherent skills, but environment that is important. Art is viewed differently after seeing many different pieces and learning about it.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Very interesting.<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- That\u2019s why it\u2019s important to expose kids to lots of good music and art. Kids have supple minds, so they soak things up like sponges. I think it would be good to teach kids these sorts of things in school.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n\n
![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/Connect_19_04.jpg\")
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
\nThe more negative an art piece is, the more strongly it can shift into a positive light.<\/h4>\n\n- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- I feel that the more negative an art piece is, the more strongly it can shift into a positive light.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- How is that so?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Take Disneyland\u2019s Mickey Mouse. It\u2019s a mouse, right? Mice are despised pests that carried diseases throughout Europe. So, I thought it odd that Walt Disney would choose a mouse as his main character.
Well, apparently, his first character was a rabbit. Then, he was deceived by someone and the rights for his rabbit were taken from him, so he couldn\u2019t use it anymore. He thought about what animal he could use that nobody would take from him, and decided on a mouse.<\/dd>\n - Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Is that so! I never knew that.<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Mice are perceived negatively as being despised by people, and thus have a strong ability to turn positive. It\u2019s the same with art. I think that the more absurd it is, the more power it has to turn positive. What I often tell young artists is that they should not fill one piece entirely with brightness. It should also make you feel a sense of darkness. If you don\u2019t put death, which is what humans hate the most, into a work of art, it won\u2019t endure. Humans do not exist solely in brightness. It is the existence of darkness that makes brightness shine more strongly. That is why I think we quickly tire of art pieces that are only bright and soothing.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- So, when you choose works of art, you base your selection on whether it has strong negative power in addition to positive power?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Yes, exactly. First off, I listen to the artist\u2019s story and try to ascertain how much that person needs art. I only choose artists who would be desolate without art.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- That\u2019s very extreme (laughs).<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Yes, because it\u2019s a problem if they lose interest in 5 or 10 years. Those that are just ordinarily intelligent are also no good. Because they\u2019re clever, they tend to change directions to something different. The good ones are those that completely devote themselves to art at all times.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- To completely devote yourself to art \u2014 sounds like a happy life.<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Sure. That\u2019s why they can put up with being poor. Even van Gogh only sold two paintings during his lifetime. He would never have guessed that one day his paintings would sell for millions of dollars.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/Connect_19_05.jpg\")
\n<\/div>\n\n![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/Connect_19_06.jpg\")
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nGinza should combine a global standard and locality.<\/h4>\n\n\n- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- I think art plays an important role in revitalization. Is anything like this being tried in Ginza?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- For 8 years, Ginza held a competition called the Space Design Competition. In this competition students were given free range of the show windows of 10 shops, including Shiseido and Mikimoto and could design the display. Unfortunately the competition is finished, but our next plan is a project based on photography.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- That sounds fun. How would you like Ginza to be in the future?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- I think it is important to combine a global standard and locality. Back when there was no global standard, it was okay to live in an area without knowing its characteristics. This is what is known as being noncosmopolitan. But the noncosmopolitan era has ended. Now we have to reconsider locality.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- What do you mean by locality?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Locality is when outsiders come in to your community and things you never noticed before that seemed perfectly natural suddenly become extremely interesting. By seeing things through another person\u2019s eyes, you create a definition of what you are. If we don\u2019t maintain locality in Ginza, it will become just another district with shops similar to some other district. I think it would be great if Ginza maintains a global standard on the main streets as well as locality on the off streets.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n\n
![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/Connect_19_07.jpg\")
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nThe next guest will be\u2026<\/h4>\n\n- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Could you tell us about the next guest?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- It\u2019s Koji Shibata, president of Ginza-Kanameya, a kimono accessories store. His shop has a particularly large collection of tortoiseshell ornamental hairpins, some of which are truly works of art. It is definitely worth seeing.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n\n
![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/Connect_19_08.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\nChisako Takashima<\/h4>\n
Violinist. Started playing the violin at age 6. After playing abroad, she moved her home base to Japan, and gives concerts all over the country. Although her current focus is on performing music, she also appears on TV and radio programs. Thanks to her much-loved personality, she is appearing in more and more venues.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Was it your father that first opened the gallery?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Yes. My father opened the Tokyo Gallery in Ginza in 1950 and initially hung Western-style paintings by artists like Tsuguharu Fujita and Soutarou Yasui who studied in Paris. Later, at the very end of the 50\u2019s, he went to Paris himself. At that time, there was a major abstract impressionist movement going on called Art Informel. My father returned to Japan confident that the rest of the 20th century would be devoted to abstract art. After coming home, he decided to focus on abstract paintings in Japan, and introduced the latest European pieces in the gallery. Lots of young artists and even Issei Miyake in his student years started coming around.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- No kidding! Did your father originally work in the art world?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- He came from a poor family, so he started an apprenticeship at an antiques shop immediately after higher elementary school. Then he went to fight in the war. The war was followed by the dissolution of the Zaibatsu (financial combine), and a period when a new population of rich people emerged. My father started working as a mediator for selling paintings from the previous rich people to the new rich people.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- He must have been a connoisseur. Did he also deal in antiques?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- No, he didn\u2019t. After going independent, he started selling western-style modern art to art museums. He would bring paintings to the Oohara Museum of Art (in Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture), collect money, and then go spend it in Kyoto (laughs).<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Really?!<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Well, he had the experience of surviving the war, and must have considered himself lucky just to be alive, right? So he probably never thought about accumulating wealth and just wanted to enjoy his money. So, ever since I was little, there were always starving artists boarding at our home.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- No kidding.<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- They would come to my father for pocket money or a meal. So I often ate meals with these artists. Taro Okamoto sometimes came for a meal with us.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Unbelievable! (laughs)<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Yes, they were odd men \u2013 definitely not normal adults (laughs). I doubt my brother and I would be surprised by anyone we meet, after being surrounded by strange people from all over the world when we were kids.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/p>\n
Interior of Tokyo Gallery<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nIt\u2019s important to expose kids to lots of good music and art.<\/h4>\n
\n- \n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Art seems somewhat difficult to decipher. Can you give some tips for appreciating art?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- I tell visitors that art is made up of three things: materials, techniques, and concepts. That means, what kind of materials were used? What techniques were used to create it? And, what exactly is the artist trying to say?<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- The part about what they are trying to say seems the most difficult. If the viewer cannot catch the meaning of the piece, is that their own fault, or the fault of the piece itself?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Consider this \u2013 most Japanese people seeing Mount Fuji think it is beautiful, right? Why do we think so? It\u2019s because we learned to think so. We saw Mount Fuji with our mother and father and they said it is beautiful. That is a type of learning. Art appreciation is always learned, and the viewer\u2019s power of understanding depends on how much they\u2019ve learned.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- I see! It is the same with music. If you play Mozart for aboriginals in Africa, they do not think it\u2019s good at all. You only come to recognize something as music after learning through various experiences.<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Exactly. And those experiences are cultivated in the environment. For example, if you brought aborigine children to our home, they would grow up the same way I was. So, it is not inherent skills, but environment that is important. Art is viewed differently after seeing many different pieces and learning about it.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Very interesting.<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- That\u2019s why it\u2019s important to expose kids to lots of good music and art. Kids have supple minds, so they soak things up like sponges. I think it would be good to teach kids these sorts of things in school.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
\nThe more negative an art piece is, the more strongly it can shift into a positive light.<\/h4>\n
- \n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- I feel that the more negative an art piece is, the more strongly it can shift into a positive light.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- How is that so?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Take Disneyland\u2019s Mickey Mouse. It\u2019s a mouse, right? Mice are despised pests that carried diseases throughout Europe. So, I thought it odd that Walt Disney would choose a mouse as his main character.
Well, apparently, his first character was a rabbit. Then, he was deceived by someone and the rights for his rabbit were taken from him, so he couldn\u2019t use it anymore. He thought about what animal he could use that nobody would take from him, and decided on a mouse.<\/dd>\n - Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Is that so! I never knew that.<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Mice are perceived negatively as being despised by people, and thus have a strong ability to turn positive. It\u2019s the same with art. I think that the more absurd it is, the more power it has to turn positive. What I often tell young artists is that they should not fill one piece entirely with brightness. It should also make you feel a sense of darkness. If you don\u2019t put death, which is what humans hate the most, into a work of art, it won\u2019t endure. Humans do not exist solely in brightness. It is the existence of darkness that makes brightness shine more strongly. That is why I think we quickly tire of art pieces that are only bright and soothing.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- So, when you choose works of art, you base your selection on whether it has strong negative power in addition to positive power?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Yes, exactly. First off, I listen to the artist\u2019s story and try to ascertain how much that person needs art. I only choose artists who would be desolate without art.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- That\u2019s very extreme (laughs).<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Yes, because it\u2019s a problem if they lose interest in 5 or 10 years. Those that are just ordinarily intelligent are also no good. Because they\u2019re clever, they tend to change directions to something different. The good ones are those that completely devote themselves to art at all times.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- To completely devote yourself to art \u2014 sounds like a happy life.<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Sure. That\u2019s why they can put up with being poor. Even van Gogh only sold two paintings during his lifetime. He would never have guessed that one day his paintings would sell for millions of dollars.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
Ginza should combine a global standard and locality.<\/h4>\n
\n- \n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- I think art plays an important role in revitalization. Is anything like this being tried in Ginza?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- For 8 years, Ginza held a competition called the Space Design Competition. In this competition students were given free range of the show windows of 10 shops, including Shiseido and Mikimoto and could design the display. Unfortunately the competition is finished, but our next plan is a project based on photography.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- That sounds fun. How would you like Ginza to be in the future?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- I think it is important to combine a global standard and locality. Back when there was no global standard, it was okay to live in an area without knowing its characteristics. This is what is known as being noncosmopolitan. But the noncosmopolitan era has ended. Now we have to reconsider locality.<\/dd>\n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- What do you mean by locality?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- Locality is when outsiders come in to your community and things you never noticed before that seemed perfectly natural suddenly become extremely interesting. By seeing things through another person\u2019s eyes, you create a definition of what you are. If we don\u2019t maintain locality in Ginza, it will become just another district with shops similar to some other district. I think it would be great if Ginza maintains a global standard on the main streets as well as locality on the off streets.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
The next guest will be\u2026<\/h4>\n
- \n
- Takashima<\/dt>\n
- Could you tell us about the next guest?<\/dd>\n
- Yamamoto<\/dt>\n
- It\u2019s Koji Shibata, president of Ginza-Kanameya, a kimono accessories store. His shop has a particularly large collection of tortoiseshell ornamental hairpins, some of which are truly works of art. It is definitely worth seeing.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/p>\n\n
Chisako Takashima<\/h4>\n
Violinist. Started playing the violin at age 6. After playing abroad, she moved her home base to Japan, and gives concerts all over the country. Although her current focus is on performing music, she also appears on TV and radio programs. Thanks to her much-loved personality, she is appearing in more and more venues.<\/p>\n