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Mori Art Museum Tokyo 2003

Entrance hall with picture by Yasumasa Morimura: "A Magnanimous Prayer ", depicting the show "Happiness".

Like all the other rich and wealthy Mr. Mori has to show that he's more than money. So he installed his own art museum on top of his billion bucks worth Mori tower. Recently opened on October 18th.

Private art museums are quite common in Tokyo, an environment which often lacks public funding, so Mori Art Museum has to prove it's really "on the top". By appointing David Elliot, former Moderna Museet Stockholm, as the first non-japanese director, and having managers from Museum of Modern Art and Tate Gallery sitting in the board, the museum underlines its ambition to play in the very first league worldwide.

Critics however have pointed out that the museum is merely an appendix to a shopping mall ("an ornament in an over-designed retail-entertainment complex"), without real independance from it's owners and main sponsors, the Mori Building Group.

Samples


What's between 5 and 52? The signs in the elevator gives no clue...		Mrs. Mori, wife of the owner, posing in front of the Tokyo skyline. From an image brochure of the museum.

Inside the opening exhibition "Happiness", an ironic title probably reflecting the feelings of the owner of the museum.		The interior design follows very much the synthetic, neutral, reduced white cube model of any museum around the globe.

The cafeteria is allowed to be more loud and stylish than the museum itself.		Overlooking the Roppongi area with the indispensable guide to culture industries... happy Adorno!

More info

Article in German available at Thing Blog Das Mori Art Museum

See some other pictures

At Thing Gallery + Studio Adorno