Art historian Dr. Charles Merewether is the artistic director and curator of the 2006 Biennale of Sydney (established 1973). Merewether has worked and taught in Mexico, Spain, Australia and the United States and is the author of a number of books on art, including "Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art: Experimentations in the Public Sphere in Postwar Japan 1950-1970." In preparation for Australia's largest exhibition, he traveled to over 40 countries in two years, seeking artists that came from outside of the dominant Western art world. David Elliott, Director or the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, attended the opening of the biennale and spoke to Merewether on behalf of The Japan Times about art in Asia, introducing new cultural values to Australia and the purpose of the world's ubiquitous biennales.
What is your opinion of the current art scene in Japan and how does this compare with other countries in East Asia?
I am delighted at the level and quality of participation of artists from Japan. Each of them offers very different forms of work that reflects the dynamic diversity of contemporary art. There has been a high degree of experimentation in Japanese art for almost 60 years. If we look back to the postwar period, we can find extraordinary instances across all forms of visual media, as well as in the other art forms. Moreover, such instances were often competing. This range and depth of practice is stronger than in South Korea or even China, especially when it comes to the integration of sound or animation or the use of an unusual range of materials.