Today I went to see the new national art museum and some galleries in Roppongi. But on my way to Omiya station I noticed lots of police officers stopping all pedestrians and cars from passing. I asked what was going on and they informed me that the Prince of Japan visited a museum and is about to drive by. I picked the wrong job. About a minute later lots of cops on motorcycles and a black car motorcade went streaming by.

I did not have a gallery guide and hoped to pick one up at the museum but it was closed. The Mori Art Center was close so I went there to see if I could pick up a gallery guide there, but it was closed as well. I went into an art book store to copy down the addresses of a couple galleries from the back of an art magazine and went looking.

Three galleries had ground floor storefront windows and the rest were on upper floors. These galleries were in the Roppongi Hills district. In this district all but one gallery was located in the same building but on different floors. While watching a video installation in the Taro Nasu gallery, I thought, “I’m here on a Fulbright Grant researching art in Japan and I’m in an art gallery in Tokyo, what do I have to loose by talking to the receptionist?” One of my research projects is to interview gallery directors and artists so I thought, “What a great time to start.”

I left my card at four different galleries after speaking with the receptionist at each gallery. They were reasonably nice but I don’t expect much until a relationship is started. I will follow up with email requests for interviews. Everyone seem excited about participation in interviews in the future. Today turned out to be quite productive since I got four new leads and I saw the prince drive by.