Japanese Art in the MON Collection

Once again, the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON) exceeds the limits of its walls, democratizing access to its collection and reaching even larger audiences. With the exhibition “Japanese Art in the MON Collection”, an excerpt from the Asian collection, MON pays homage to the immense Japanese community of Assaí, which is directly linked to the colonization of the city and which builds its history. 

It is important to highlight that this would not be possible without the special focus that the State of Paraná, especially through the Secretariat of Culture, has dedicated to this important sector, always prioritizing the decentralization of the arts so that it reaches all audiences. This is attentive and sensitive management, which believes in the transformative role of culture. 

The moment is especially important for MON, which today is part of the list of great international museums. The size and relevance of its collection, which increased fivefold in recent years and became more comprehensive, were fundamental in this trajectory, in which the importance of the Asian art collection is immense, with almost 3 thousand works, donated to MON by diplomat Fausto Godoy. 

The exhibition presented here is part of this collection that, due to its size and grandeur, constantly surprises us with works that have never been exhibited before. Disputed by other institutions in Brazil and by collectors abroad, the Asian collection that belongs to MON and the people of Paraná – allows for countless readings and approaches. 

MON's main proposal with roaming is to facilitate dialogues between cultures and territories through art. The exhibition instigates and demonstrates that multiple and transversal knowledge crosses cultures, territories, and eras.   

Juliana Vellozo Almeida Vosnika 

Director-president of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum

As soon as I arrived in Tokyo, in 2001, I became interested in some dolls that were sold at the city's antique fairs, sometimes outdoors. Ningyo means "human form": nin (human, people) and gyo (form). In Japan, these dolls have a wider function than just toys. They are a celebration of childhood and the crucible of parents' hope for a harmonious, successful life for their children.

They are not suitable for playing and are not part of the children's playful universe. They are, rather, fetishes loaded with symbolism. They are displayed for around 15 days, on specific dates – Girls' Day and Boys' Day – and then collected, carefully stored in boxes, and passed from generation to generation. Sometimes they are discarded forever, especially those that did not achieve what was desired, as it is believed that they have accumulated negative energy.

Some are offered when a newborn is visited and represent emperors and empresses, beautiful young women, samurai Noh characters, benevolent entities, healthy babies, in other words, a whole range of individualities that reveal the deepest ideals of the Japanese collective (un)conscious.

The objects presented here have spanned the last 200 years of Japan and show a little explored, but extremely rich, aspect of the Japanese soul and culture.

Fausto Godoy – Donor of the Asian Collection

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Paper has always been one of the preferred supports for Asian civilizations. There are a few older works on another type of support – silk, in China, is one of them. Several types of vegetables are used to manufacture paper. In Japan, most pastes are made from washi, composed of fibers from shrubs native to the region – kozo (Broussonetia papyrifera), gampi, and mitsumata (Edgeworthia chrysantha) –, whose production continues to this day, using ancient techniques.

Washi was considered an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO. Paper is a natural support for the ukyo-e, in literal translation, "portraits of the floating world". This is a genre of wood engraving that prospered in Japan between the 17th and 19th centuries. Initially, it was intended for consumption by the merchant class of the Edo period (1603-1867), who sought entertainment in kabuki theaters and in the Yoshiwara region, in Tokyo, where the geishas and courtesans lived. The term ukiyo ("floating world") described the hedonistic lifestyle of that era. But wood engraving was also intended to portray heroes and their deeds, in addition to the wars in which the Japanese empire was involved at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.

Fausto Godoy – Donor of the Asian Collection