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Episode 5: Maki Kaneko image

Episode 5: Maki Kaneko

S1 E5 · Breaking the Frame
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98 Plays15 days ago

Breaking the Frame is a podcast featuring interviews that explore how museums and the people who work in them shape American history and culture — past and present. Our guest this episode, Dr. Maki Kaneko, is an Associate Professor of Japanese Art at The Kress Foundation Department of Art History of the University of Kansas. She is co-curating an exhibition at the university’s Spencer Museum of Art on the work of Japanese-American artist Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani.

To keep up with Breaking the Frame, subscribe or visit our website at zencastr.com/Breaking-the-Frame.

More information about the artworks and topics discussed in this episode:

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Transcript

Introduction and Guest Background

00:00:13
Speaker
This is Breaking the Frame. A podcast featuring interviews that explore how museums and the people who work in them shape American history and culture. Past and present.
00:00:25
Speaker
I'm Ruthie Dibble, the Robert N. Shapiro Curator of American Decorative Art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. And I'm Emily Casey, Hall Assistant Professor of American Art and Culture at the University of Kansas.
00:00:40
Speaker
Our guest today is Maki Kaneko, Associate Professor of Japanese Art at the University of Kansas. And I want to note from the beginning that Maki is my colleague here in the Department of Art History at KU. And ever since I arrived last year, it's been really rewarding talking with her about the intersections between our work.
00:01:00
Speaker
And Maki, you have the distinction of being the only academic we're

KU Jayhawk and Podcast Preparation

00:01:05
Speaker
interviewing this season. And it's because we're so intrigued by an important and timely exhibition you're co-curating at the Spencer Museum of Art here on KU's campus about the artist Jimmy Soutoumou Mirakatani. So Maki, can you introduce yourself and tell listeners what you do?
00:01:23
Speaker
Well, thank you, Lucy and Emily. And hello, everyone. My name is Maki Kaneko, Associate of Professor in Art History Department at the University of of Kansas. And I'm teaching Japanese modern and contemporary art, Japanese print, manga, and the Asian American and the Asian diaspora art at the KU. And ah it's my real pleasure.
00:01:45
Speaker
and a privilege to be sitting here today with Emily and Lucy. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for being on. And I have to ask, what is KU's mascot? Oh, Jayhawk. Right. hawk I feel the need to say go Jayhawks. I love that I'm the interloper, and this is a very KU episode. Right. Well, once Lucy comes here, you can escape from Jayhawk. Jayhawk is everywhere.

Interview Structure and Personal Background

00:02:12
Speaker
okay Yeah. We'll give you a tour of all the Jayhawk sculptures across campus. I can't wait. And you don't just have to say go Jayhawk, you can say Rock Chalk Jayhawk. Jayhawk. Cool. Will do.
00:02:29
Speaker
So we also have with us Hannah Johnson and Kendall Marsh, two graduate students from Emily's Museums in America class who helped us prepare for this interview. Along with our graduate production assistant, Kat White, they'll be asking some of the questions today. Kat has been working behind the scenes all semester to organize, record, and edit these interviews. We are so happy to also have her voice and perspective in the conversation.
00:02:54
Speaker
Hi, this is Kat. Thank you very much for the kind words. I'm super excited to be helping produce this podcast and hear for another great conversation, especially getting to hear an academic point of view.
00:03:06
Speaker
Hi, this is Hannah. I'm very excited to be here as well. um I'm particularly interested in this project because it's upcoming. And um I'm really curious to see like how its conceptualization alters as it goes along and how it evolves. Hi, I'm Kendall. I'm really excited to be on this project because I was in Machi's seminar last semester. And so this conversation is really expanding upon topics we covered in that class and how Mira Kanani's work intersects with museums in Emily's class.
00:03:35
Speaker
Nice. so Maki, we have a three-part approach to our interviews where we start with some questions about your origins as a scholar, and then we'll spend some time on your current project and intellectual engagements. and Then at the end, we're going to wrap up with a lightning round and concluding questions that are really forward-looking. um so I really look forward to hearing all of your thoughtful answers and perspectives.
00:04:03
Speaker
So Maki, beginning with your intellectual origins in your training, um my understanding is that you didn't start out working on Asian American art or artists, but that your early research interests were in Japanese artists working in the 20th century. So can you share a little bit about your intellectual journey over the course of your career and what brought you to your current research interests?
00:04:32
Speaker
Okay. Well, thank you for that question. So well, first of all, I'm Japanese. I was born in Tokyo and grew up in Tokyo and I stayed there until the age of 24. So I completed my BA degree in Japan. And then, well, I believe that the reasons why I chose art history as my major in the first place was a sort of a vast influence from my parents.
00:05:01
Speaker
They are not interested in art at all. And they're actually highly, highly political people that's deeply involved with the student political movement in the 60s and the 70s. And I kind of believe that art is for the elite people and the bourgeois as products and so forth. It's probably a now very old-fashioned way of thinking. But honestly, this is a type of household I grew up.
00:05:30
Speaker
And then ah perhaps ah as a form of my own resistance against them, I love art. And I befriended with a lot of artists to wanna be. And i I myself wanted to be an artist, but just realized that I'm so clumsy. I can really make things in the home that I wish to make, but that's why I really admire the artists and the artworks.
00:05:57
Speaker
um So I chose art history as my major at the university and it shocked my parents. And I still remember that were ah my mother or father, I forgot forgot which, but that they actually said that our daughter that chose the subject for elite people in the bourgeoisie. But the irony is I ended up being interested in the political art.
00:06:20
Speaker
I was more interested in modern and contemporary art, and especially those artists who closely engaged with political movement and propaganda art and so forth. So presumably, I was impacted by my parents' political sort and tried to find the ways in which I can sort of combine them both. My own personal interest and the heritage I got from my parents.
00:06:47
Speaker
So for my BA thesis, I chose the artist, a Japanese artist, who later gained ah ah French citizenship, Fujita Tsugoharu, whose French name is Leonardo Fujita, as the topic of my BA thesis. And Fujita was an internationally renowned artist, but during the Second World War, ah he was the most prolific propaganda artist. So that was the topic I chose.
00:07:18
Speaker
for my thesis, and but back in the time it was early 1990s, Japanese war propaganda art made during the Second World War was still sort of taboo topic for the Japanese. you know Japan lost to the war so that for the majority of Japanese people and the artist families, Second World War cannot be remembered as a quote-unquote good war at all. So it was a controversial topic And my advisor said that maybe you want to just ah hold on and keep this topic for your future ah study. So I worked on the artist biographical study for my BA thesis, but sort of determined to continue my academic journey. And then ah many people said that I should be outside Japan to pursue this kind of politically contested issue. So that's the
00:08:14
Speaker
actually one of the major, major reasons why I've decided to go outside Japan to study Japanese art history.

Living in the U.S. and Research Influence

00:08:22
Speaker
Thank you. That's such a, you know, interesting story, not only about what brought you to art history, but some of the, we all I think end up taking steps in our path that are informed by things happening in that moment that have larger repercussions. So that choice to study outside of Japan. Can you talk a little bit then about following From that, you know, you did your doctoral work, it sounds like, on these kind of Japanese political topics. And then how have your research interests evolved since that moment to the full array of the kinds of questions you're asking now in your work? ah right So I did my graduate studies in the UK.
00:09:07
Speaker
Well, my reason was very simple because it's it was close to France where am my artist ah lived in the end. And so my ah graduate study focused on the 20th century, continued to focus on 20th century Japanese art. And my dissertation is about Japanese war propaganda, ah and not just the focusing on the Fujita Suguharu, the artist I wrote my BS thesis about, but a range of Japanese war propaganda artists. And then looking back now, my focus was pretty limited. In fact, you know almost exclusively focusing on the Japanese artists active in the mainland Japan. And then it was not intentional, but all the artists are male and fairly, fairly well-established, elite artists. So
00:10:04
Speaker
When I completed my dissertation, which eventually evolved into my first book, I thought I covered quite a range of topics. But then I fortunately got the job at the KU, so me made another major move from the UK to the USA. And then just really living in ah the United States of America was a totally ah new experience for me. that basically in the UK, I was not in London, but I was in the city called the Norwich. So it's all white faces. And literally that the students are the only Asian-looking people in the city, which was natural for me. But once I moved to the United States, I just realized that a group of Asian-Americans and a really sonically mixed society and culture exist in this country
00:10:58
Speaker
which really told me to open up my perspective further, especially beyond the nation-state framework and ethnic framework of so-called Japanese, especially because I was working on the international world so that my perspective should be a transnational in the first place, but which I just didn't realize until I moved to the United States.
00:11:25
Speaker
So Maki, just fast forwarding to last year, you had a Terra Foundation senior fellowship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which holds a place in my heart because it's where Emily and I met when we had pre-doctoral fellowships. Oh, that's right. That's right. How wonderful.
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah, and you're all part of the family now. And I remember like looking at the senior fellows and being like, Oh my gosh, like, I could never. um So you're already very impressive to me. hu But I And I just should set up to I feel like, you know, the SAM fellowship program brings together every year, like a number of art historians working on different topics at different stages in their career. And it's this really amazing space where you're It's kind of like parallel play. You're all pursuing your research, but in the same space, literally. And it's a wonderful way to meet individuals and also understand your place in the the field of American art writ large. So I was wondering if you could tell us one about what you were researching there and also about what you learned about how your project fits into the field of American art. Well,
00:12:42
Speaker
Thank you for asking about my, you know, I had a wonderful experiences in Sam and Washington, D.C. You know, I described myself as a Kansan, so I never lived ah outside of Midwest. So it was it was really great. And as I explained, I was primarily trained as a Japanese art historian. And I always describe myself as an Asianist. That's the category, whether or not I like it.
00:13:10
Speaker
That's a category I always use to consider my work and identify myself as. But ah since I started working on Jiministo Mirikitani, probably I need to explain a little bit about this artist because his positionality inspired me to explore ah my own interest in a field as well as methodology. Jiministo Mirikitani, what's the second generation Japanese-American?
00:13:39
Speaker
But at the age of one or two, ah he was brought back to his immigrant parents' hometown in Japan, which was Hiroshima. So he was raised in Hiroshima and trained as a painter in Japan. And then he came back to the United States much, much later ah in 1940. And then all sorts of things happened to him. So he's really culturally and linguistically in between, in between Japan and the United States, US chosen by brass, but grew up in Japan. So ah for that reason, his art and also his stories all came as a sort of shock to me, because as I explained, I really thought Munarui focused on the Japanese artist, predominantly working within the national boundary of Japan.
00:14:38
Speaker
And likewise, he doesn't really fit into, at least not comfortably fit into the framework of Americans or Americans or even Japanese-American art. Once again, he's really culturally mixed. He traveled between Japan and the United States across the Pacific Ocean. And his art as well, it's a real mixture of what he studied in Japan and then what he sort of gained in the United States later in his life. um So that's the one of the reasons why i I just forced myself to go out of my own comfort zone and the primary field, which is Asian art history, to join in the American art history. And the Smithsonian Fellowship really provided me with a wonderful opportunity to do
00:15:34
Speaker
that I was actually really a little bit surprised when i got um I got this fellowship because I'm not the Americanist. But does ah they also tried to open up the framework of American art and then accept someone like me is a clear indication of their new direction. And likewise, many fellows I met at some, someone like myself, they walked on a range of quote-unquote, American artists, but in their own distinctive way, they try to break down the mold of American-ness, of American

Mirikitani's Art and Exhibition Decision

00:16:13
Speaker
art. Many of them are working on ethnic minority artists or diaspora artists or a queer-identified artists. So ah when I was at ah ah studying at SAM, I was clearly or a sort of but outsider in a sense, because I'm ah still an Asianist,
00:16:32
Speaker
And I am a Japanese and I'm senior compared to with the majority of my colleagues. But at the same time, I can kind of comfortably locate myself in this sort of but really diversified and the transnationalizing field of American art.
00:16:51
Speaker
I will say, and I have said it many times, that my definition of an Americanist, which is someone who works on American art, just as you describe Maki an Asianist, the definition of an Americanist is someone who says, I don't really do American art history. That's a wonderful definition. I love that.
00:17:11
Speaker
because the people I know who are doing the most interesting work often in the field are, as you describe, people who don't necessarily, because of their training or their academic background, feel like they fit comfortably there. And I think that's something that in many ways has defined aspects of the field, but is also what makes it really exciting. So I am glad to hear about your experience at SAM and say,
00:17:39
Speaker
you fit comfortably in because that's how a good American is. right I agree. I fit comfortably because no one fits comfortably. yeah yeah Maki, as a professor, an academic, a scholar, you know you were talking about your first book and and other writing you've done, it could be said that your standard mode of communicating research and ideas is through teaching and writing. So can you tell us a little bit about how and why you decided with this project on Jimmy Murakatani, you decided it needed to be an exhibition? What prompted you to be
00:18:18
Speaker
thinking about a curatorial strategy for researching and communicating ideas versus the modes that you've generally used in your career. All right. Well, thank you for that. Again, the question, it's always a pleasure to talk about my current project, so I really appreciate this opportunity. um Okay. Well, came to know this artist, Jimmy Stone McDonough, through the documentary.
00:18:47
Speaker
As an artist, he was and perhaps still largely unknown, but his life ah came to known to the public through the movie called the Cats of Mirikitani, which was premiered in 2006 and directed by Linda Hatendoff. And then I think I watched the movie for the first time back in either 2012 or 13, the time when I was finishing my first book,
00:19:17
Speaker
which all focused on Japanese um male, elite artists. And I have already explained this a little bit, super but I was totally shocked how much I didn't know about Japanese or Japanese American artists, and especially within which they represented the war and memories. That was my primary focus in my first book,
00:19:45
Speaker
but I just realized how limited and partial my perspective was. Despite that, I kind of claimed that the my study was interdisciplinary and using a transnational lens, da, da, da. But it was extremely limited. But it was too late for me to rewrite my first book. Of course, it was already in print. um So almost immediately after I complete completed my first book,
00:20:14
Speaker
I naturally determined to... yeah I just thought to myself that I must work on this artist. It was a strong urge. So in a sense, it was not planned at all when i I watched it, shocked by the artist, and then immediately decided to work on this artist. And at first, I... e I was just thinking of doing some research and maybe writing a couple of journal articles and see if I can develop them into my second book. But then realized that ah this artist was not really not norm. And then there are a few retrospective exhibitions of Jimmy Stormby's attorney, but only a very limited number of works are displayed there.
00:21:07
Speaker
So I really started off ah started my research off by identifying whether his works are surviving and whereabouts of their locations. And I'm fortunate enough to gain a massive support from Linda Hatendoff, who is the director of the documentary film. And then she keeps the majority of Mirikitani's surviving works But once again, not many of them are ever on display and not publicized anywhere or photographed.

Curatorial Collaboration and Exhibition Themes

00:21:44
Speaker
And then I realized that, oh my goodness, it's not going to be a couple of genre articles. And Purobabrida Academy Book wouldn't be the best site to explore this topic, but I have to bring them out to the public view.
00:22:03
Speaker
and I was, and I am still, is a total amateur in curating an exhibition. As I said, to i I found myself very, very clumsy, so I'm scared of handling artworks and so forth. So I never thought about a museum career. I always wanted to teach and write. So i ah I'm a sort of armchair scholar type, but really, Mirikitani pushed me.
00:22:33
Speaker
that it's not going to be an academic book targeting at the limited a number of people, but his art has to be on display. So once again, without much pride and absolutely no expertise in curating exhibitions, I just jumped in. I just jumped in and then talked to my colleague at the KU's University Museum, the Spencer Museum of the Art.
00:23:01
Speaker
And fortunately enough, one of my colleagues at the museum, Chris Eltzams, Dr. Chris Eltzams, he agreed to collaborate with me. So without him, I cannot do anything. you Curatorial ah practice was something that I never ever done myself. But luckily, I have secured some supports and collaboration from Chris, as well as Linda Hatendov, so that I They encouraged me to ah move forward, exploring this entirely new area of expertise for me. I think that's a really exciting story, just the way that a project can take you in a different direction in terms of how you're presenting the material and to what audiences. And you know as someone at an earlier stage in my career, I find it really encouraging that you know even if you don't set out
00:23:58
Speaker
to plan to pursue a project like this that it can happen for you. so um So anyway, thank you for sharing that. We have some more questions that are going to unpack the work you're doing on the exhibit and Hannah is going to ask the next one.
00:24:13
Speaker
Thank you, Maki. That was really interesting to hear how you kind of came into this. And I'm so glad that you are doing this project because I had never heard about Jimmy Meerkutani either. And his artwork is absolutely amazing. So I'm so glad you're doing this just because now I know about him. um So considering the multiple identities of Jimmy he as is just his Japanese identity, American, Asian-American, a transnational ah diaspora, and as like outsider art,
00:24:39
Speaker
How have critics and museums tended to categorize Jimmy in the past, and in what ways will this differ from your upcoming exhibition? Okay, Hannah, thank you so much for your super kind words. Well, as I said, there are a few retrospectives of Jimmy in the past, but not too many. So in that regard, he hasn't been really contextualized or historicized yet.
00:25:07
Speaker
but i noticed a sort of interesting tendency that when ah Jimmy's works are displayed in the United States, he is, well, probably not surprisingly, but he is framed as a Japanese-American. And he produced a lot of works on the theme of the incarceration. He was incarcerated in a two-day camp and then apparently identified as disloyal and lost his US citizenship so that he had a real real hardship in the camp, which turned out to be a number of works on the theme of a camp. So um his works tend to be categorized as so-called camp art, or at least that subject matter tend to be emphasized most. Now, in Japan,
00:25:58
Speaker
There are two retrospectives of Jimi Tzumiri Kitani being held up to this moment. And then, once again, perhaps not surprisingly, but his art focusing on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima tends to gain most attention. And once again, just like a camp,
00:26:19
Speaker
ah his works on the themes of camp, Mirikitani produced a lot of drawings and also collages on the themes of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which he didn't experience because he was in the United States at that time, but he lost his family members and also his schoolmates due to the bomb. So these are two twin themes of Mirikitani's works, but quite interestingly, in the United States, camp art tend to gain more attention while in Japan, Hiroshima is emphasized perhaps more than anything else. So nothing wrong with this kind of theme-oriented display, but I really want to cast a light on the multi-faceted aspects of Mirikitani's art.
00:27:11
Speaker
because that's reflected his multifaceted experiences both Hiroshima and incarceration are connected for him. So I organized an exhibition under the ah basically under the five themes, the incarceration, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, plus 9-11, eyewitness 9-11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. So Hiroshima slash 9-11,
00:27:39
Speaker
And also he produced a lot of works on the ah theme of New York art. And he claimed that he was very much integral part of the post 1945 New York avant-garde art scene. And then his works re-corrected his activities and a friendship with this artistist and that artist. So ah that's another theme he worked on a lot.
00:28:06
Speaker
And then I focused on the exhibition's going to feature his collage works, which sort of intermixed his personal memories and the significant ah events that affected Japanese and Japanese-American communities in the early 20th century. So by doing so, I tried to bring out the multiple issues, not as separate ones.
00:28:32
Speaker
but the as all interconnected ones largely affected someone like Jimin Tomerikitani who found himself in between Japan and the United States.

Mirikitani's Artistic Identity and Process

00:28:43
Speaker
I'm struck by how the term outsider artist has been applied to Marikatani, and that term is really kind of imprecise and messy, but it sounds like Marikatani was kind of both working from a sense of being an outsider in that he's neither comfortably you know
00:29:04
Speaker
Japanese nor comfortably American. But at the same time, I'm so fascinated to hear that he was really central to the post war art scene in New York. And also, it was like, very vocal about that. So it just makes me wonder if that kind of art market term of outsider art, which you see in galleries and in job titles, like, how useful has that been for you as you think about Jimmy Murakatami?
00:29:32
Speaker
I'm not going to use the term outsider art at all in my exhibition elsewhere. Well, as, Lucy, you nicely described his boss, his boss, insider and outsider. And it's probably depending on how we define the quote unquote, outsider art. But normally it refers to a group of artists who are outside established institutions and self-taught, but medically wasn't self-taught.
00:30:02
Speaker
He was ah properly trained, actually, very properly trained as a Japanese, so-called Japanese-style painter in Japan, and then claimed the human himself as a very much as a central figure in the New York art scene. But on the other hand, yeah he lived on the streets, he was forgotten, he was largely ignored. So in that regard, indeed, he was an outsider. But what fascinated to me was whether or not outsider art is a variable category for him, what we should use it at all. What fascinated to me was such a sort of, once again, in between liminal state that Mirikitani embodied, he's both outsider and insider, both American and the Japanese American, who was, he was both ah properly trained, but the same time active on the streets.
00:30:56
Speaker
So such a liminal state itself was the main focus of my exhibition. But once I used the term outsider art, pool probably that's going to give ah people with a sort of preconceived idea about what kind of art is they would see. So that's the reasons why I'm not going to use the term outsider art. For Mirikitani and perhaps other artists,
00:31:20
Speaker
either. It's kind of limiting to me. Thanks. And now we have a question from Kendall. Thank you, Maki, for providing light on this interesting conversation and teaching us more about Mir Katani's work. um So my question for you is, how is Mir Katani's art process and materiality influence how you're approaching this upcoming exhibition? Wow. Thank you for another wonderful question.
00:31:49
Speaker
Yes, this is yet another core issue that I want to bring up in the exhibition. How he created artworks on the streets and its materiality, well, military became and unemployed and unhoused in the mid-1980s and then remained on the street for the next ah nearly 20 years. Well, 16 years to be more precise.
00:32:17
Speaker
um So on the streets, he used the salvation materials and also requested pedestrians and neighbors ah providing him with some art supplies. So he ah created a small ah community or his supporting group on the streets. And that's the kind of collaborative system and ways in in which he not only survived, but actually turned the New York City street into his own ah studio is one of the issues I really want to bring up in the exhibition. So he's very vocal about his own talent and his own creativity, but at the same time, his works can be considered as a ah collaborative work. And as a matter of the fact, we can find a lot of, well, in corporations of other people's voices,
00:33:12
Speaker
and a hands that sort of accidentally incorporated in his works. We can see a lot of English words written by someone else because Miliketani's English capability was limited. Apparently he asked pedestrians, how can I say this in English? And then that person put his own his or how what their own words into his works. And also there are some Chinese words incorporated into his works because Miliketani often stationed nearby New York Chinatown, and they used a lot of salvage materials from there. So most of typically Americanist works incorporate Japanese wars, written by himself, English wars, and the Chinese wars all over places. Once again, he goes beyond circumvent boundaries of nation or ethnic groups,
00:34:08
Speaker
ah which were embodied in his own artworks. And then, ah regarding materiality, I'm really glad that you brought up this issue, ah because one of the reasons why academic journals or books are not going to do a justice for Mirochitani is the materiality of his works. That's why, i you know despite my lack of expertise, I have to go for an exhibition. um um Because they are made on the streets or using materials from the streets, the materiality itself can tell us a lot about not just his artistic ideologies, techniques and so forth, but the living conditions and the making conditions that he endured on the streets. So some of them are fairly badly damaged or incorporated weird materials that um some strange haptic quality
00:35:05
Speaker
exist in his works. So that's something probably an exhibition can really represent to the audience. Thank you so much for um sharing some more of those details about the works themselves and how their form has prompted some of not just your questions about his work, but also how you plan to display it. And relatedly, I had a question about some of your ideas about how you plan on using language in the exhibition. So the title for the exhibition is Street Nihonga, The Art of Jimmy Suchomu Mirikitani. And so you're using a Japanese word in the title of the exhibit, and then you've also talked about the presence of writing and Japanese on the works themselves. So I'm curious if you have thought about
00:36:02
Speaker
how you're going to use language in your exhibition interpretation. Yes, the language. That's a tricky thing. I still need to communicate, of course, with the audience and the reader of my catalogue. And in that case, I can really randomly use a several languages together.
00:36:23
Speaker
Well, as for the title, Street Nihonga, we had exactly same conversation whether, you know, the street is obviously an English term and Nihonga is Japanese. And then probably none of ah the audience in Kansas would immediately recognize what Nihonga is. Then it's a good title or other less approachable title to them. Nihonga, the literal translation of Nihonga is just a simply Japanese painting.
00:36:53
Speaker
but normally translated into Japanese style painting. ah That is a modern painting category, literally invited in the late 19th century when Japan opened itself of up for foreign trades and influence and rapidly westernizing. And ah it was a reaction against rapid westernization of Japan that the group of artists and intellectuals tried to maintain as well as a revive so-called Japanese traditional painting forms and techniques. And that that's developed to into the painting school called Nihonga, Japanese style painting. So we had this conversation, but in the end, we've decided to go for this title, consists of one English word and the one Japanese word, because that itself embodies Mirikitani's life and a career.
00:37:50
Speaker
and the liminal space or in between space he lived in. After all, probably not all the people would immediately recognize what Nihonga is, but that wouldn't push them off from coming to our exhibition. I hope that it makes me curious. get great That's good too no good to So rather than inviting them to be curious and inviting them to come and find it out what Nihonga is,
00:38:20
Speaker
Maybe they're not going to find a clear-cut answer, but that's how Mirikitani really devised his artworks as well. And then the language in ah interpretive materials, such as wall rebels and catalogues, I hope to make everything bilingual in the English.
00:38:43
Speaker
in Japanese, but as I said, Mirikitani's works incorporate Chinese terms, not many, but sometimes Korean as well. um So making things bilingual actually doesn't do it justice, but still I try to ah sort respond to transnationality of Mirikitani's artworks.

Concept of 'Street Nihonga'

00:39:08
Speaker
And then maybe everything's not going to be um transparent to the older audiences. But I hope they can accept that, because that's how Mirikittari makes things. And probably that made sense to him, but which doesn't make sense to us. But in order to appreciate and respect the artists' lived experiences, I think we ah should embrace that ah some in-transparency.
00:39:40
Speaker
or perhaps incomprehensiveness embedded in his works. But I try to make things as accessible as possible, for sure. But I also must admit that there is are limitations.
00:39:52
Speaker
I really like the way that you're taking Americana's biography and kind of churning it through your mind and through your co-curator's mind and then sending it out as a methodology for how you want to curate the show. I think that's really you know a formula for success and I'm really excited for this project.
00:40:15
Speaker
Listening to you, I'm realizing this is a brilliant title because it's not only um marrying together ah language, as we just were talking about, but some of these questions about wedding together, different forms of art history, Japanese art history, with American art histories, as well as these different stylistic traditions, everything that we associate with the idea of street art versus a formal style or school of painting as it developed in Japan. so
00:40:48
Speaker
It seems like there's a lot of work happening in in bringing these two words together in the way that you do. And it really encapsulates, as Ruthie said, some of the methods that you've been employing. Do you have a date for when the exhibition is meant to open? Thank you so much. Such an important yeah piece of information I want to deliver to the world. It's now officially slated at the Spencer Museum of Art between a February 19th to July 14th, 2026.
00:41:16
Speaker
okay and a time when Kansas City is hosting the World Cup soccer. So you can come and enjoy the soccer and Mirikitani show if you like.

Lightning Round Insights

00:41:29
Speaker
That's so cool. Yeah, I think so. Incredible combination.
00:41:33
Speaker
At this point, we're going to move on to a lightning round where you're going to be peppered with three questions from Kat, Kendall, and Hannah. Kat, do you want to start us off? And and I should say, Maki, this is really just answering what comes to your mind first. Oh, wow. OK. Yeah. yeah that Sounds scary, but I'll try.
00:41:55
Speaker
First, what are three words that describe your ideal museum label?
00:42:04
Speaker
Okay. The ideal museum levels with the identification of the author and then multi-lingual. Multi-lingual. And then handwritten. No. I love it. I don't know if it's possible or not, but I just said that the things just came into my mind. That's amazing. I love it.
00:42:33
Speaker
Okay, Maki, if you could ask every visitor to the Jimmy Mierkatani exhibition one feedback question, what would it be?
00:42:43
Speaker
um I enjoyed it, but confusing. That's the kind of feedback I'd love to hear from the audience. It's confusing, but there still enjoyable. It's enjoyable, but very confusing. That's the feedback I would love to hear.
00:43:05
Speaker
If you could take students on a pilgrimage anywhere in the world to see a single work of art, what would it be? Wow. We wrote this one, Mackie. We wrote this one just for you. That's the hardest question. That is a really hard question. Oh, wow. A single artwork? Just the one? Sure. Um, maybe my home. I have a...
00:43:35
Speaker
Mirikitani's work at home, which is just a sitting in my closet.
00:43:44
Speaker
There are many other artworks, you know, I'd love to visit with my students, but this is the one I can actually invite my students and promise.

Ongoing Research and Audience Engagement

00:43:55
Speaker
It's a great artwork, actually. That's fantastic.
00:44:00
Speaker
oh gosh so sorry i fear like i be a sweet to so system artist You did such a great job. I think in ah in a lot of your answers, there's this ah sense of interrelating, I think, art with different kinds of personal experience, like being personalized, like the handwritten label, inviting students to your home to see the artwork in your closet, that I just think like there's ah actually a theme there that I find really good. Oh like
00:44:31
Speaker
So Maki, your exhibition is opening in 2026 simultaneously with the World Cup in Kansas City. um But, you know, exhibitions take years to organize. That's some time away. And I'm sure you and your curator, Chris Ersons from the Spencer Museum of Art have already carried out a lot of research and planning for the project. So what parts of the project have you not yet completed and you're most excited for right now?
00:45:01
Speaker
um Okay. Chris and I have done the most of field research in, well, Milikitani's works are in Japan and also a few in a few locations in the United States. And we have done our research in several locations already, but we haven't really explored one of the most important locations, which is the West Coast where Milikitani was born. He was born in Sacramento, California.
00:45:32
Speaker
and spend some days in San Francisco and so forth. So we haven't done that yet. And then we have researched so many works Mirikitani produced on the streets in the 80s and the 90s and the 2000s. But we have identified only a few works that he created earlier.
00:45:57
Speaker
like 1940s and the 50s. And there are a few works, early works in Japan, but we haven't identified any in the United States. So we're hoping to find some surviving possibly on the West Coast. So that's something we're going to do in this summer. And then that's going to conclude our research on the exhibition.
00:46:21
Speaker
Do you have leads for where you might find some of that work? Is it in private collections or in institutional collections? I don't think that none of those early works are in ah institutional collections. If they survive, it's they have to be in his friend's house or relatives taking care of those early works. That's our prospect.
00:46:47
Speaker
That's really exciting. i I can't wait to see what the exhibition turns up. And the other thing it makes me think of is how often exhibitions like the one you're doing about an overlooked, under-recognized artist are important because the exhibition themselves brings more work out of closets and attics because people it's just the exhibition will create more buzz around this artist. and um I think, I hope you get as many as you want to need for the show, but I'm sure also that the show will will show that there are more out there. And that's exciting too. oh that That's so true. And especially those early works, yeah, we're hoping to find more before or after maybe the show. And the other hand, because Mikitani produced so many on the streets and basically he gave these works away from the pedestrian. and So maybe, you know, in the New York City and elsewhere,
00:47:41
Speaker
um You might find his works in your closet or somewhere else. That's quite possible. That's also ah quite exciting, too. Yeah, it's likely that we uncover more and more. Yeah. So, Maggie, now we're at our last question for you, which is a question we ask everyone, and it's meant to be really open-ended. So it is, what do you wish people knew about the kind of work you do? ah About this particular project or just a sort of in general I think in general in general um wow in general is hard because um this Mirikitani project is not something I normally do in fact as I explained it's really organically evolved so for Mirikitani exhibition I really hope that
00:48:38
Speaker
people will come to the show and then associate themself with Mirochitani, interact with Mirochitani's works, try to hear his voices. And as I explained, it's not just a single theme, Mirochitani, illustrated, but that there are many, many themes like a migration, nuclear disasters, incarceration, statelessness, and the homelessness,
00:49:08
Speaker
there are several themes that Mirikitani's art can evoke. So I hope that a range of people will come, and probably not and not every single work of Mirikitani speaks to them, but I hope there are certain themes that many people can associate with themselves with. That's something I wish people would know about my intent behind the exhibition.

Breaking Boundaries in Art History

00:49:36
Speaker
but for more like a general work I normally do, which is more scholarly, perhaps, or teaching. um Because i'm ah I'm Japanese and I mainly focus on Japanese art history, I always try to break down the boundaries of what people consider as Japan, what people consider as Japanese, or how I think as a Japanese and what Japanese art is about.
00:50:06
Speaker
So that's my goal all the time. I like that. And I want to add one other thing that I hope people take away, which is that when you say that you learned about Mira Katani and saw his work and you had to do an exhibition, you didn't have to. You chose to. And I think that's it's really courageous, I think, to um launch yourself into a project that's outside of what you do as your main job, which is to teach and write books and articles. Well, thank you so much for saying that. Yeah, I chose to do that, but at the same time, Mikitani really encouraged me to do that as well. Yeah, I hope it's going to be a collaboration between me, many other people like Linda Hatendoff and Jimmy in the heaven.
00:50:59
Speaker
I'm curious also following on that, having gained experience as you are in curatorial methods of researching and communicating ideas, are there things you've learned about how to do that kind of work that you think is going to maybe influence some of your future projects, even if they're not exhibitions? Are there methods that you've developed that you kind of want to hold on to as you move into future projects? Emily, maybe yes, maybe no. I'm still very much running, and really the every day is my running experience. And then our exhibition is still ah in a planning stage. So that the once we moved on to more like an implementation stage, I'm sure I'm going to learn more
00:51:52
Speaker
And then that's going to be something totally different from my usual scholarly work, because in the planning stage, you know it's still about my ideas and writing proposals and the so forth, which is not too different from what I normally do. But the once we ah enter into the implementation stage, it's going to be more practical, real sort of a curatorial aspect will be the main practice.
00:52:18
Speaker
So I'm still running, so I'll see how I feel um in a two years' time. Maybe I want to organize another exhibition. Maybe I'm going to say that I'll never ever do this. I'm looking forward to seeing myself, where I'm going to be.
00:52:36
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for giving us a window on this stage of the process with, as we said, what I think is going to be a really exciting show that's going to bring so much to Kansas and beyond ah in terms of not just shedding more light on Mira Katani's work, but also opening up all these questions that you've you've raised about how we think about art and culture. So thank you for sharing that with us.
00:53:02
Speaker
Yes, thank you, Maki. And thank you for the great questions from our grad students today. Yeah, thank you very much for all your ah questions. And I'm extremely excited to have having this conversation. Thank you so much. Yeah, take care.
00:53:26
Speaker
I was really excited to be a part of this conversation for this episode as I've had Baki as a professor, and I worked with her for one of my minor fields. And it was really interesting to get to hear more about this other element of her work and her research, how she was able to combine this academic approach with working in a museum setting.
00:53:51
Speaker
That's ah so great Kat and I think it's really wonderful as ah as a graduate student at KU to get to connect with your professors in um this way related to their research as well.
00:54:05
Speaker
And, you know, i ah I loved for the same reason as Maki's colleague getting to learn more about her work and especially because of the fact that Maki and I are finding this overlap in terms of our shared interests around ah new perspectives in American art and so you know, when we were thinking about that and thinking about how Maki was breaking the frame, um you know, what I really thought first was the most inspiring way to me that she's breaking the frame is just her ah willingness to try new practices and move into new fields. So, um you know, Maki talked about how she trained as an academic,
00:54:53
Speaker
her background is in Japanese art history. um But for this project on the artist Jimmy Mirakatani, she really discerned that it um to to reach its full fruition needed to be an exhibition, and that prompted her to move into the curatorial realm. um And it also has you know moved her to straddle the fields of Japanese art history and American art history. And I think um she's ah really breaking the frame in both by doing so.

Closing Remarks and Acknowledgments

00:55:26
Speaker
And so, you know, as someone who myself is um is a professor and is thinking about kind of the course of my career as I continue to work,
00:55:35
Speaker
That idea that projects can take you to new places and build new skills and perspectives for you was something that I really took away um and I think is a a good example of how expanding American art, breaking the frame of of how American art has been considered, um really ah enriches everyone who comes into contact with it.
00:56:03
Speaker
I couldn't agree more, Emily. And to our listeners, ah thank you for tuning in and follow the link in the episode description for visuals and more context for our conversation with Maki. And we want to say thank you to Kat for producing this episode, as well as to the graduate students who were involved in prepping for it and participated in our conversation.