Contemporary art museums in Japan Analysis of curatorial practices and perception of art in comparison with western influence

With this thesis I want to explore the relationship between exhibition venues and cultural perception to contemporary art through a comparative analysis between Europe and Japan. The research is grounded in an auto-biographic approach, based on a six-month travel experience in Japan, during which multiple contemporary art institutions, exhibitions, and artistic sites were visited and critically observed from the perspective of a Western student. The study investigates how curatorial strategies and choices influence the experience of contemporary art, with particular attention to the cultural and social differences between Japan and Europe. Case studies such as Naoshima, the Chichu Art Museum, and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, highlight how these exhibition spaces, along with their curatorial choices and architectural design, reveal much about the culture and society of a country like Japan, while at the same time maintaining a strong influence from Western art. At the same time, European art was marked by significant aesthetic contamination through influences from Asia that started in the late 19th and early 20th centuries particularly with the emergence of Japonisme. This phenomenon marked the beginning of a cultural bridge between Europe and Japan, a dialogue that has continued to develop over the past two centuries, progressively bringing the two contexts closer and revealing a strong bond. This thesis therefore aims to analyze this tension between distance and connection, highlighting how direct experience within a culturally distant context can generate not only disorientation but also new forms of mutual understanding. By combining personal narrative with theoretical reflection, this research proposes a reading of the museum not only as a space of conservation and education, but as an active tool of cultural and social expressions.