2024/12/20

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"Hong Kong LEI – Cover Story" is a series introducing shining people in Hong Kong. This article was produced with the support and cooperation of Tasting Table Japan Premium, which provides information on health and food safety.


 

 

I want people to have an experience that changes their perspective on society.

M+ Website

Interviewer: Linda Hung Hom
Edited by: Miho Fukagawa

 


<table of contents>

<M+: a museum that goes beyond the conventional framework>
<From artistic activities to the world of curation>
<Unraveling the context surrounding art>
<Three questions for Yokoyama-san>


 

<M+: a museum that goes beyond the conventional framework>

Guo Pei is one of China's most famous couture artists. Her exhibition opened at the Hong Kong museum M+ in the fall of 2024. At the opening press conference for her exhibition, which has attracted attention from all over the world, a woman was presenting her work in a professional yet enjoyable manner in front of the lined-up press. She is Ikuko Yokoyama, lead curator of M+'s Design & Architecture department.

Museums have specialists who collect artworks for their collections, conduct research, and plan exhibitions. These are the curators. That's Yokoyama's job.

However, M+, where Yokoyama works, is a little different. The "plus" in the name M+ means "not being limited to the art that traditional art museums handle." As Asia's first visual culture museum, it does not stick to traditional ways of perceiving art, but instead takes a policy of re-examining works from an interdisciplinary perspective.

With Guo Pei at the M+ venue. (Photo: Winnie Yeung @ Visual Voices, Image Courtesy of M+, Hong Kong)

The aforementioned Guo Pei exhibition is one of Yokoyama's projects. The exhibition features a number of dazzling couture dresses, but Yokoyama has also researched the revival of traditional Chinese crafts lost during the Cultural Revolution, and has included a social message that makes people question the history of European and Asian clothing culture, and even modern fast fashion. "Even when it comes to clothing design, it is inseparable from social issues such as regional situations, politics, and environmental issues," he says, providing a new perspective.

From Guo Pei's exhibition "Guo Pei: Fashioning Imagination." (Photo: Dan Leung, Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong)
(Photo: Dan Leung, Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong)

<From artistic activities to the world of curation>

"I'm lucky that my work and hobbies are a perfect match," says Yokoyama. It's no surprise to see her happily showing around the artworks. However, it was surprisingly late for her to encounter the profession of curator. She originally entered the industrial design department of an art university in Japan because she wanted to design chairs, then graduated from an art school in Sweden and entered the workforce as a public art artist in the country. It was after that that she decided to become a curator.

"As soon as I rented my own studio and started my career as an artist, I realized that being an artist is a lonely job." He didn't think it suited him, so he opened a gallery with his partner at the time. Through this gallery, he found enjoyment in supporting other artists and writers and planning exhibitions, and gradually he became interested in the work of a curator.

Yokoyama, who had finally come to the realization that "this is my field," decided to return to school and enrolled in a newly established course in curation at an art university in Sweden. After graduating, she stayed in Sweden and worked as an exhibition manager at the university and as an independent curator.

At the same time, plans to build M+ were underway in far-flung Hong Kong. To establish a museum that would showcase a wide range of artworks, M+ was looking for someone who went beyond the traditional framework of a curator, and Yokoyama was a perfect fit for the group.

"I took a roundabout route before I found the job of curator. I've been both a creator and a curator, so I have a bird's-eye view that traditional curators who only have deep knowledge in their field don't have. That's what made me a perfect fit for M+." Yokoyama agreed with the philosophy of M+ and decided to move to Hong Kong, a city she had never been to before.

The special exhibition "Making It Matters" includes a restored Taylor neon sign and original sketches of various neon signs. (Photo: Dan Leung, Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong)

<Unraveling the context surrounding art>

Since starting work at M+, Yokoyama has worked on a number of notable projects, such as exhibiting the Walkman as "a device that created a new culture of immersing yourself in your own world, what we now call 'solo culture'" and relocating the entire sushi restaurant "Kiyotomo", designed by Japanese designer Kuramata Shiro, from Shinbashi to the M+ gallery and exhibiting it there.

Most recently, he has collected and begun exhibiting one unit from the Nakagin Capsule Tower Building, a representative work by architect Kisho Kurokawa that was demolished due to deterioration. What motivates Yokoyama, who continues to work energetically?

In 2024, a unit from the Zhonggin Capsule Building was acquired by M+. (Photo: Dan Leung, Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong)

"For example, a mug. It's ceramic, has a simple design, and costs HK$10. That's fine for a consumer to buy it. But it can be viewed in different ways in different contexts, such as, 'How can this be produced for HK$10? How much do the people who make it get paid? Where is it made? How is it sold?'"

"Rather than leaving something in a single context, I would like people to discover how it is connected to other fields and to the present day, and ultimately to change their perspective on society. That's the kind of experience I would like people who come to M+ to have."

Yokoyama says that his own life has been colored by such experiences, and he continues to work today with the hope of providing experiences that change the way people see the times and society through art and design.

Yokoyama points to the location of Room A806 in the Nakagin Capsule Building, which is in the M+ collection.

 

<Three questions for Yokoyama-san>

Q1: How do you spend your days off?

On my days off, I go to exhibitions in Japan and abroad with my fellow art lovers. We look at art, design, and architecture, eat, and drink. I also like to eat and cook, so I often invite friends over to my house.

Q2: From Sweden to Hong Kong. Did you face any difficulties with the change in your lifestyle?

Definitely the environment! I had been living in Sweden for 20 years without needing air conditioning, so I wasn't used to it, the tap water wasn't cold, the roads were dirty, etc. I also had doubts about the sight of seafood drying in the sun on the side of a busy road. I've gotten used to it now, though.

Q3: If you could be reborn, where would you like to be and what would you like to do?

Other than my current job, there is nothing else I want to do. It also depends on when I am reborn. If I were born 200 years ago, I think it would be fun to fly around the world and collect plants like the botanist Carl Linnaeus. But if it were 100 years from now, with global warming, being a botanist would be a hopeless job (laughs).

 

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