Archives
Since its establishment in 1993, Keio University Art Center has gradually acquired ‘research archives’ that relate to contemporary art and culture. Archive is an institution that gathers, preserves, orders, and researches materials in a given subject area. At the Art Center, we also aim to build a ‘research archive,’ consisting of both original materials and research documents published by the researcher.
The Art Center currently houses four such research archives with subjects relating to Japanese modern art: Hijikata Tatsumi (bodily expression), Takiguchi Shuzo (art and criticism), Noguchi Room (sculpture, architecture, and environmental design), and Yui Shoichi (Jazz criticism), Nishiwaki Junzaburo (literature and poetry), Sogetsu Art Center. As an ‘art archive,’ it takes a holistic approach to these various art related subject matters. That is, the archive does not exist in a digital sphere only – it is also a place of interchange and exchange, where researchers work in collaboration with archivists and archive materials; a place where documents can reveal aspects of the artist’s viewpoint as well as the artist’s life more generally. The archives at Keio University Art Center aim to foster exchanges between material and intellectual forms of experience.