On top of Tokyo, views of modern art

Few museums in the world can rival the location of the Mori Art Museum. Situated atop Tokyo’s most imposing skyscraper in the middle of the city’s trendiest area, this prestigious premise within the shimmering 54-story Mori Tower is no mere whim. It is intended to send the message to Japan that modern art is important.

In Japan, interest in contemporary art has never been high, lagging far behind the enduring popularity of the Impressionists and other renowned artists from the past. But the audacious Mori Museum, which opens today, is taking on the challenge of changing the perceptions of a wary public.

“The issue is to get people off the street and up the tower. There is a psychological as well as a physical distance,” says David Elliott, the museum’s British director. “But it is an absolute tragedy if people cannot see the art of their times and remain trapped in a time warp always looking backward.”

Clearly a lot of thought has gone into how to make the art accessible. The masterstroke has been to create a single ticket, for $14, that includes admission to the museum as well as to the 52nd-floor observation deck, which provides stunning views over the sprawling city, out to Tokyo Bay and as far as majestic Mt. Fuji on a clear day.

So when the 30,000-square-foot museum opens its doors, it can expect not just seasoned exhibition-goers but also young couples on dates and older tourists who initially go just for the view.

The museum will do well if it attracts just a tiny portion of the people who pass through its Roppongi Hills site. An estimated 50 million people a year are expected to visit the 28-acre “city within a city” built by the Mori Building Co. and completed in April after 18 years in development. In addition to the museum, the area boasts offices, accommodation and leisure facilities. In one corner lies the peaceful Mohri garden. Nearby stands the luxury Grand Hyatt Tokyo hotel and a 24-hour cinema, a novelty in a city where the final screening of the day typically starts at 7 p.m. About 20,000 people work here, served by 200 shops and restaurants.

The development is intended to serve as a model for a new Tokyo. The idea is that replacing Tokyo’s low-level sprawl with high-rise buildings will allow for more greenery and greater proximity to arts and leisure facilities, as well as increasing living space in the city center to help curtail the exhausting hour-plus commutes on crowded trains. In other words, a city more like New York.

Yoshiko Mori, museum chairwoman and wife of the developer Minoru Mori, calls the museum the “heart” of the project. “Roppongi Hills is meant to be not just a collection of buildings but a cultural environment. At the center of that is the museum.”

How far Roppongi Hills can live up to its bold aim of changing Tokyo remains to be seen. But even doubters accept that it has raised the profile of an area that was once known mainly for its sleazy nightclubs. And it will make culture more accessible, with the museum open until 10 p.m. on weekdays and midnight on weekends. The city’s other highly rated modern art institution, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, is open only until 6 p.m. and is in the suburbs -- effectively a day trip for most of the city’s population.

Mori describes herself as an art amateur whose role is to represent members of the public on the museum board. “Many Japanese have negative feelings about modern art. They feel it is hard to understand or just strange. We wanted to create a museum that people can easily come to so art can be part of their everyday lives.”

The first exhibition, “Happiness, a Survival Guide for Art and Life,” provides hints about how the museum will set about its task, putting challenging contemporary art alongside works from more familiar artists. John Constable landscapes are next to 11th century Cambodian statues. Monet is a stroll away from a video by Brit Art’s Tracey Emin, a Jeff Koons creation or a Yoko Ono work.

“This is quite a challenging exhibition and very dense,” Elliott says. “It is meant to be accessible, but it also makes the statement that contemporary art is not made in a ghetto. It is made by people who live among us and who are busy with ideas that were worked upon by artists for thousands of years, though they are finding new forms of expression. Happiness is one of the big subjects of art.”

The museum isn’t what the average Japanese would expect, and that’s the point. The 54-year-old Elliott, who was curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Stockholm, is the first foreign curator of a major Japanese museum, and he was clearly brought in to create a stir.

“Being a foreigner can be an advantage, especially if you want change,” he says. “Because of the lack of friendships and obligations you are a freer agent.”

One of the declared aims of the Mori Museum is to nurture and showcase Japanese and Asian artists. In February, the “Roppongi Crossing” exhibition will feature contemporary work by Japanese artists, with similar shows planned every three years to highlight Japanese art, architecture, film and even comics.

The need is evident, with many Japanese contemporary artists far better known overseas than in Japan, including Mariko Mori, the niece of Minoru and Yoshiko Mori. “There is a pattern whereby the prophet is unknown in his own land,” Elliott says. “It is not only a Japanese phenomenon but it is common in Japan.”

Certainly, the Roppongi Hills project has already helped transform the fortunes of Takashi Murakami, whose blend of pop art and Japanese manga has won him an enviable international following. He has at last achieved widespread fame at home, since his cheerful cartoon characters have become emblems of Roppongi Hills, adorning the site and even covering the interior and exterior of local buses. He has also designed distinctive logos for Louis Vuitton bags, a must-have item for many Japanese women.

If it is rare for an artist to be so closely associated with corporate sponsors, Murakami doesn’t mind. “Historically, Japan had court artists working for feudal lords, and that was a great period for Japanese art. So I feel it isn’t necessarily bad for artists to work that way. I sympathize with Mori’s efforts to give a dream to Japan and was inspired by the challenge of producing outstanding work to satisfy him. If you look at the areas where Japan excels -- graphic and industrial design, anime and manga -- there is a client with whom the artist collaborates.”

For the Mori Museum, Murakami has created a “carpet” of cartoon characters that lead visitors from the subway station to the ground level “Museum Cone,” where elevators whisk visitors to the museum. “I wanted to create something that could be understood by a 2-year-old as well as an adult, something that would make people lose themselves for a moment to happiness,” he says.

To walk around the busy Roppongi Hills site is to wonder whether Japan is really in the 13th year of recession. The museum is going against the grain in a stagnant art market. In recent years, most of Japan’s department stores have closed their galleries, which had convenient locations in city centers and by major stations.

However, Elliott believes the loss is small. “The department store gallery movement has finished, and their disappearance is not really a bad thing. There were some great shows, but they were not really museums. They didn’t establish collections; they were not researching and not helping develop artists,” he says. “They were just putting on pre-packaged exhibitions.”

The Mori Museum has no permanent collection and will only begin to discuss two years from now whether to build one. This may limit the effect the museum is able to make and may make it more difficult to borrow works from other major museums, an arrangement that is usually reciprocal. But for the moment, the museum has challenges enough.

Rie Sasaki in The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.