MAMI KATAOKA APPOINTED MORI ART MUSEUM DIRECTOR

Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum announced yesterday that Mami Kataoka, the museum’s chief curator and deputy director, will be the institution’s next director. Fumio Nanjo, who has helmed the Mori since 2006, will serve as special advisor to the museum upon his retirement at the end of this year. “Kataoka, as one of the few female museum directors in Japan and the country’s most internationally-active curators, is superbly equipped to guide the Mori Art Museum in the next phase of its development,” Nanjo said.

Kataoka has served as the chief curator at the Mori, where she has staged exhibitions with artists including Lee Bul, Ai Weiwei, Aida Makoto, NS Harsha, and Chiharu Shiota, since 2003. She was previously the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery’s chief curator as well as co–artistic director of the Gwangju Biennale (2012) and artistic director of the Biennale of Sydney (2018).

Commenting on her new appointment, Kataoka said: “I would like to see the Mori Art Museum function as a focal point for thinking together about a better future, deepening our understanding of the structure of the world in which we live and paying respect to different historical, social and cultural backgrounds, through contemporary artists whose activities span the globe.”