[Art Collector Visit Series Vol.5] Milestones in the First Year of Collecting: The Art Collection of Kumano Art Bot

Art Collector Visit

This article is part of a series in which we visit the homes of art collectors and view their collections.
For the fifth installment, we visited Kumano, who has accumulated a collection of approximately 40 works in just one year as a collector. Previous collector visit articles can be found here.

Kumano is a company employee in his 30s who has built his career moving through the entertainment industry, real estate, e-sports-related companies, and the web industry. He also shares art information under the name Kumano Art Bot.
He and the author connected at the Colecolle exhibition, and he has agreed to participate as a collector in the second Colecolle exhibition.

Collector Interview

Kumano’s art collection began when he purchased his current home. The residence we visited was a maisonette-style unit created through extensive renovation of a used condominium. Incorporating art was on his mind from when he was considering the property, and he had personally planned the renovation and interior design. Having majored in the arts at university, wanting to “display paintings in the living space” was a natural extension.

1. How long have you been collecting?
   It’s been a year and a half since I started visiting galleries with the intent to purchase, and one year since my first purchase.
   I also started Twitter around the time of my first purchase.
2. What was your first art purchase?
   A drawing by Rikako Kawauchi.

   

3. What led you to start collecting?
   Purchasing my current home was the trigger.
   Since I renovated an older condominium, I wanted to display artwork in this space. I originally majored in art at university and had always enjoyed art appreciation, so it was a natural progression.

   

4. Please share your collecting policy or focus.
   My policy is having no policy (laughs).
   Recently I’ve been thinking about developing something like a policy, but I still can’t break away from buying based on intuition — choosing what I feel is good.
5. What is your favorite artwork?
   I don’t rank my own collection.
   Without that constraint, I can’t think of a living artist off the top of my head, but I love Paul Delvaux’s Forest. I also love Tamara de Lempicka and Gustave Moreau. At university, I wrote my thesis on Symbolism through fin-de-siècle art, so I love artists from the late 19th century onward who strongly express femininity.

   

   

6. What is your most expensive artwork?
   It’s the first overseas artist I collected.
   I purchased it from Maki Fine Arts, but I’m still paying in installments, so it hasn’t arrived at my home yet. I feel apologetic about this payment method. I’ll welcome it in once the payment is complete. Of the works currently in my home, it might be Yuka Taguchi’s piece.
   I live in a place called Kanazawa-Hakkei, which is a scenic location famous for Utagawa Hiroshige’s ukiyo-e prints. Starting with the idea of “wanting to display ukiyo-e at the entrance,” and as I researched further, I arrived at the notion of “Japanese-style painting → the popular bijin-ga.” About a month after starting to live in this house, I learned of Taguchi’s exhibition and encountered this work.

   

    

7. Please share a memorable collecting episode.
   Perhaps the episode of collecting Shinya Higashi, a graduate of Kyoto City University of Arts (former Kyoto University of Art and Design), who also participates in Colecolle.
   When I made an impulsive one-day trip to Kyoto, I was shown a size-50 work at the gallery “COHJU contemporary art,” and I remember being thrilled at the moment I realized “I can afford this size!”
   It’s displayed in the living room, and hanging it in the room instantly brightens the space — it’s a work that made me realize the power of paintings to influence a space.

   

8. Are there any artists you’re currently interested in or wanting to collect?
   This is also a hard question, but the works of Tomona Matsukawa and Arisa Kumagai are ones I’d like to own someday — I feel that female beauty, almost a way of living, appears there, with both strength and quietness.

   ユカ・ツルノ・ギャラリー
   松川朋奈/山谷佑介 二人展「OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR」

   正直松川さん目当てで行ったところがあるが、大変良かった
   生で見て頂きたい
   本当に迷っているがそもそもお金が…ない…
   最近女性の生き様や心境、歴史を丁寧に紐解く作家さんに注目している pic.twitter.com/ZvziOpZzcP

   — くまのアートbot (@kumaaaart) June 20, 2020

   Also, in terms of artists I admire, I’ve loved Yasuko Iba, Makiko Kudo, andOscar Oiwa since my student days. (Though as a collector, they feel far away…)
9. Are there any particular artists you focus on collecting?
   For now, I’m not focusing on collecting any specific artist, but I’d like to collect works by Shinya Higashi as much as possible from a long-term perspective.
   Being able to follow a young artist’s trajectory from their first solo show is the ultimate pleasure of being a collector in real time.

   

10. Which up-and-coming artists are you excited about?
    As a super-young artist, I’m quietly paying attention to Kazuma Yamamoto, a second-year undergraduate at Tokyo University of the Arts. I’m also paying attention to the five artists I recommended for the Colecolle exhibition.
11. Which art collectors do you respect (or find interesting)?
    The two collectors participating with me in the Colecolle exhibition (Kurosawa and Kamei) have a truly remarkable foresight from an artist-collection perspective, and I quietly respect them (laughs).
12. Are there any galleries or gallerists you’d recommend?
    WAITING ROOM.
    They carefully explain works even to collectors with no purchase experience, and it’s the gallery that became my entry point as an art collector. Their collaborative project with Bijutsu Techo’s OIL, “WORKS ON PAPER,” was also aimed at beginners, so it’s very open and easy to recommend to others. I feel that the gallery reflects gallerist Ashikawa’s own stance.

    

    Also, at Maki Fine Arts, Maki-san has never treated me poorly for making small installment payments and always kindly shares artist information, so I feel a personal connection (laughs).
    Other galleries I’d recommend to those who are just starting to collect include TAKU SOMETANI GALLERY and EUKARYOTE. Their choice of new artists is wonderful and, with many young artists, the price ranges are often affordable.

    

13. Please share your thoughts on framing.
    Honestly, I don’t have much of a preference. For drawings, I’m a heavy user of a frame called “Sakura Sankaku” sold at Sekaido, and I basically don’t frame canvases.
    It comes in wood-grain and black, and I choose based on the work. “Sakura Sankaku” is very inexpensive, so it’s extremely useful.

    

    

    

14. Please tell us about how you store your collection.
    For now my home has enough space, but I’m thinking about what to do when it runs out.
15. Do you own a warehouse? Or are you considering one?I’m thinking about whether shared storage using collector networks or lending to companies could be well-systematized.

Kumano, who collected 40 works in one year.
Below, I’d like to introduce some of his collected works. ※Not in any particular order

Kumano is currently planning to launch a gallery as an option for a parallel career alongside his primary corporate life. Though he has been collecting for only a short time, he is considering running a space that can bridge young artists and people distant from art.

※Author’s note: parentheses indicate purchase locations.

Please refer here for information on the collector exhibition Kumano will be participating in.