INSTITUT FÜR RELIGIONSWISSENSCHAFT Staged Art, Lived Experience – Japanese Museums as Spaces of Encounter
Art museums are more than places where artworks are displayed. They are stages for collective experience. Visiting a museum today does not simply mean looking at a painting – it is embedded in broader social, spatial, and emotional contexts: queuing, moving through spectacularly designed spaces, experiencing light, sound, architecture, and atmosphere. Museums today function as aesthetically condensed experiential spaces where forms of participation, self-assurance, and the search for meaning converge.
The project approaches this from a religious studies perspective and examines the cultural expectations and practices that emerge in these forms of visiting, and to what extent the museum visit takes on ritualized, embodied, and effect-oriented dimensions. These dynamics are evident in Japan, where nature, technology, pop culture, and aesthetics intersect in exceptional ways, creating a unique blend of immersion and everyday life.
Japan’s museum landscape is among the most innovative in the world: many institutions are architectural landmarks, such as the Miho Museum designed by I. M. Pei or the Chichu Art Museum by Tadao Ando; others were founded by private foundations or by new religious movements, such as the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum or the MOA in Atami. Further examples include institutions such as the National Museum of Modern Art and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, as well as the Benesse Art Site on Naoshima, Teshima, and Inujima. Formats like TeamLab Planets or exhibitions featuring pop culture, such as Hello Kitty, Pokémon, or Banksy, also illustrate the increasing shift toward multisensory museum experiences.
The project examines how these forms of visiting function for Japanese audiences as well as for tourists, which museums attract particular attention, what role they play in Tokyo’s urban dynamics and the development of specific regions, and the effects they have on the perception of art, the city, and the landscape. Of particular interest is whether and how museum visits can also unfold as transformative experiences.
Literature
Buggeln, Gretchen, Crispin Paine, and S. Brent Plate, eds. 2017. Religion in Museums. Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives.London, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Foxwell, Chelsea. 2019. "Review. The Currency of 'Tradition' in Recent Exhibitions of Contemporary Japanese Art." Journal of Asian Humanities at Kyushu University 4 (3): 57–76. .
Kitazawa, Noriaki, Takemi Kuresawa, and Yuri Mitsuda, eds. 2023. History of Japanese Art after 1945. Institutions, Discourse, Practice.Translated by Tom Kain. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
Mizushima, Eiji. 2017. "Museums, Museology and Curators in Japan." Museologia e Patrimônio 10 (2): 117–33.
Morgan, David. 2017. "Material Analysis and the Study of Religion." In Materiality and the Study of Religion. The Stuff of the Sacred, edited by Tim Hutchings and Joanne McKenzie, 14–32. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
Richard, Sophie. 2019. The Art Lover’s Guide to Japanese Museums. London: Modern Art Press.
Alle Fotos: eigene Aufnahmen im Rahmen eines wissenschaftlichen Forschungsprojekts zur ästhetischen, sozialen und räumlichen Dimension des Kunstmuseumsbesuchs in Japan.
Bei abgebildeten Kunstwerken verbleiben die Urheberrechte bei den jeweiligen Rechteinhaber und -inhaberinnen.
Die Veröffentlichung erfolgt ausschließlich zu nichtkommerziellen, dokumentarischen Zwecken im akademischen Kontext.
