Photo/Illutration The artist and producer Akira Takayama (Eriko Chiba)

An artist who led a protest of the Cultural Affairs Agency’s handling of a controversial exhibit at last year’s Aichi Triennale has been awarded a prize by that same agency.

Akira Takayama, a producer and artist, who helped lead a petition drive to protest the cancellation of the exhibit, was selected on March 4 to receive the culture minister's Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists.

Takayama was selected for his role in setting up a call center with other artists to take calls from those protesting the controversial exhibit.

When contacted by The Asahi Shimbun, Takayama, 50, said he had decided to accept the award after confirming the reason the agency was giving it to him.

“I felt (accepting the award) would open a channel of dialogue with the Cultural Affairs Agency whose role is to connect the arts and society,” he said.

The “After ‘Freedom of Expression?’ ” exhibit was canceled three days after it opened because of a flood of critical telephone calls, including some that threatened to set fire to the exhibit.

Among the items that raised the ire of the public were a sculpture depicting a young girl as a symbol for "comfort women," who were forced to provide sex to wartime Japanese troops, and a video in which portraits, including one of Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989), posthumously known as Emperor Showa, go up in a burst of flames.

The Cultural Affairs Agency later decided to revoke the entire subsidy that had been approved for the Aichi Triennale.

Takayama and others gathered about 100,000 signatures in a petition drive and tried to present it to the agency in November as part of their request to retract the decision.

But Ryohei Miyata, the agency commissioner, refused to meet with those who brought the petition, and Takayama and his group ended up not submitting it because of the agency's insincere manner in handling the matter.

So Takayama was surprised by the agency's decision to honor him.

The prize given to Takayama along with the Art Encouragement Prize is awarded every year to individuals working in 11 different fields. Takayama was chosen in the field of “development of the arts.”

The agency said Takayama was worthy of receiving the prize for new artists because the call center “was a work of art based on dialogue that was started after the exhibit was suspended.” 

“Artists conducted dialogue with the public through the phone calls, and the act of bringing up the topic of the role of the arts heightens expectations for constructing a new channel between the arts and society,” the agency said. 

It added that the planning and implementing of a new field was the main reason Takayama was selected for the prize in the area of development of the arts.

The exhibit was resumed on Oct. 6 and held until the conclusion of the Aichi Triennale on Oct. 14. Takayama and about 30 other artists set up the J Art Call Center to directly handle calls from protesters. The Aichi prefectural government had set up its own hotline to deal with calls about the Aichi Triennale.

Takayama also expressed the hope that the award could provide an opportunity for dialogue with the agency in a manner other than a protest.

“I believe the arts open up a detour that avoids confrontation between the two opposing elements of ‘friend or foe’ and allows for the creating of a space for dialogue,” Takayama said.

(This article was written by Mayumi Ueda and Eriko Chiba.)