The day started with a meeting with Junichi Shioda, Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. Junichi Shioda is also the commissioner for the Japanese Pavilion at the next Venice Biennale. Hey, they have our T-shirts in the store. The store, I have to say, is really good. Design, gadgets, Mangas, and books, books, books, books.

Great meeting with Junichi Shioda. He told me a lot of information about the Asian art scene. Not only Japanese. Great information about Thailand.

The beauty of Japan is that people have all the information about the western world, plus all the information about the Asian world. It makes me think that I only know little bit about 1/4 of the world. And believe me, I am not comfortable with this idea.

After the meeting I had a walk through the collection, which is quite good. They own a beautiful Shiraga painted red on a fox fur.

The next goal of my day was to meet the people from the Bathhouse. Don't be confused here. It is not a sleazy massage place. It is a gallery located in downtown Tokyo, in a very popular district. As a matter of fact, a very interesting area of Tokyo. Kind of old and working class. Met with Masami Shiraishi and Maho Kubota. Saw Masato Nakamura's exhibition. Abstract sculptural installation made from the repetition in a circle of the McDonald's yellow "M." Nakamura is well known on the Japanese art scene for doing visual arrangements based on commercials signs. How the radical "modernist" vocabulary could be merged or confused, or even used, by commercial logos.

Since I was in this area I spent the end of the afternoon walking around randomly. Small and narrow streets, bicycles, old and fragile architecture, which I like.



But it is very bourgeois to be fascinated by this sort of vision. I know I would hate to live in it. It is part of the curatorial deformation. Of course the material of this architecture is poor. So it easy to connect with a contemporary art esthetic. But ask the people who live inside how do they like Kurt Schwitters or Jason Rhoades, and I am sure they'd kick your ... So, I feel guilty and just need to share it with you all.

Back to the International House. I knew you were curious to see the showers in the place. I usually used the left one.



Reading time before meeting with Alexandre Périgot, an artist in Let's Entertain who was in Japan for a few days preparing a project with the Spiral Hall.



It was nice to see him. Went for some Yakitori. Chatting, chatting...