AWT TALKS
LET’S
TALK ART
Discourse is an essential part of art infrastructure—and it is only enriched by broad participation. This year the AWT Talks program debuts the Directors Conversation to accompany its headlining symposium and closed-door curators’ roundtable. Meanwhile, new online talks add to a growing archive of videos featuring some of Japan’s leading artists, curators, and critics discussing overlooked currents in art and cultural history.
SYMPOSIUM
The AWT Talks Symposium invites leading thinkers from diverse backgrounds to discuss critical approaches to art and its place in contemporary society before a broad audience. What can art do? Why does it matter? And how does it translate across cultures and contexts?
Held at the West School Building Hall at Keio University’s Mita Campus, this year’s symposium explores the theme “What’s Going On (Ai no Yukue): How Art Makes Sense,” with a keynote address by Naomi Beckwith, the deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Museum in New York and artistic director of the upcoming documenta 16 in Kassel.
NAOMI BECKWITH
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, New York, and Artistic Director, documenta 16, Kassel
ADAM SZYMCZYK
SPEAKER
Curator, author, and editor, Zurich
KEIKO OKAMURA
SPEAKER
Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
ANDREW MAERKLE
MODERATOR
Editorial Director, Art Week Tokyo
DIRECTORS CONVERSATION
New to Art Week Tokyo this year, the Directors Conversation gathers global museum leaders for an public chat about everything from administration to programming and outreach. Doryun Chong, the artistic director and chief curator of M+ in Hong Kong, leads the discussion, which is hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.
DORYUN CHONG
MODERATOR
Artistic Director and Chief Curator, M+, Hong Kong
Courtesy M+, Hong Kong.
SUSANNE GAENSHEIMER
SPEAKER
Director, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
MANUEL SEGADE
SPEAKER
Director, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
PHILIP TINARI
SPEAKER
Director and Chief Executive, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing
ROUNDTABLE
Convened in the historic Ex-Noguchi Room at Keio University’s Mita Campus, the closed-door AWT Talks Roundtable brings together Japanese and international curators for frank exchanges on urgent issues in contemporary art. Please note participation in the roundtable is by invitation only.
RYAN INOUYE
PANELIST
Kathe and Jim Patrinos Co-Curator, 59th Carnegie International, and Curator, International Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
SHIHOKO IIDA
PANELIST
Head of Curatorial, Aichi Triennale 2025
RASHA SALTI
PANELIST
Researcher, writer and curator, and advisor to the Artistic Director, 61st Venice Biennale
ONLINE
TALKS
Art Week Tokyo’s popular online talks video series invites artists, art historians, critics, and creators from other fields to produce lectures and discussions on overlooked currents in Japanese art and cultural history. This year’s talks include a conversation between artists Aki Sasamoto and Koki Tanaka as well as a preview of two of this year’s major exhibitions, AWT Focus 2025, “What Is Real?,” at the Okura Museum of Art, and “Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989–2010” at the National Art Center, Tokyo, with their respective curators, Adam Szymczyk and Doryun Chong.
