Complex Mayumi Hirano

I’m not sure if this Mori is related to Moriko Mori, but I went to check out the Mori Art Museum. Mr. Mori owns a major portion of Tokyo. He has recently built a large complex that has several tall office buildings as well as apartments for the wealthy people that work in the offices. I heard that most of the space houses technology companies, but I’m not 100% certain about that. However, I can tell that the companies that rent space here are elite.

The fifty-four-story Mori Tower is part of the complex. You can get a clear view of the city of Tokyo from the top. The Mori Art Museum is on one of the top floors. The building feels like a permanent futuristic exposition. The tower staff wear odd space-age uniforms; they're kind of ugly (the uniforms, not the staff). You pay 1500 yen to get into the museum (slightly less than $15).

It’s just like going to the Empire State building – you wait in a long line before you can get into the elevator. There the staff control how many visitors are packed into the elevator. The ride is great because the ceiling changes color as you ride up - much like a James Turrell hallway I've seen at the MFA in Houston, Texas.

There are two galleries. One housed an exhibit of Giorgio Armani products while the other was showing two different art exhibitions. I skipped the fashion and went for the art. The gallery is very clean and has a nice wooden floor, but they had taped off all artworks so that visitors could not get too close. In some cases typed notes, actually placed on the art, asked visitors not to touch the works.

One show brought in contemporary works from East Asian countries and the other show focused on storytelling in contemporary artwork. It was interesting that the two exhibitions were separated. The only Asian artists represented in the storytelling show were from Japan; all other artists were from the West. This positioning of the Japanese artists with more famous western artists, while roping off the other Asian work into its own category, felt like segregation. I thought the works in the other exhibit were also using storytelling traditions. Storytelling is such a wide-open topic that all the work in both exhibitions could have easily existed as the one storytelling show.