Future of Japanese Art Museum Hangs in Balance

The Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, run by the financially burdened Japanese chemical giant DIC Corporation, has announced it will temporarily close in January 2025. DIC’s board of directors issued a public notice on August 28 stating that it will reconvene in December to review its operations, raising concerns about the corporate-owned museum’s future viability.

The DIC museum is located in Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, and currently houses 754 artworks—more than half which, as well as the museum’s land and building, are owned by DIC. With a focus on 20th-century art, the collection includes works by Mark Rothko, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Jackson Pollock, Max Ernst, and Marc Chagall, among other significant artists. After years of refusing to disclose an exact number, DIC finally revealed that as of June 30, 2024, the asset value of all the works it owns amounts to JPY 11.2 billion (USD 77.4 million) based on book value (indicating the assets’ original worth, discounting liabilities). 

Since opening in 1990, the museum has functioned as a social enterprise aimed at sharing art with the public while representing DIC’s vision of “color and comfort.” However, after severe financial slippage, the company’s board of directors began to reevaluate the museum’s operational efficiency. As its statement noted: “If one regards the museum simply as an owned asset, it is clear that it is not necessarily being used effectively . . . Having identified the improvement of capital efficiency as an urgent management challenge, the company believes the time has come to reconsider . . . the museum’s operations in terms of both social and economic value.” 

Following deliberations by the company’s Corporate Value Improvement Committee, which was established earlier this year to “advise the board of directors from a third-party perspective” and “implemen[t] management that is conscious of capital costs and share price,” DIC is now weighing three options for the museum’s future. The choices include maintaining the status quo, downsizing and relocating to Tokyo on a reduced scale, or discontinuing museum operations entirely. The committee has emphasized that “continued operation of the museum under the current arrangement is not considered practicable.”

Over the past decade, Japanese companies have been pressured by the government and the Tokyo Stock Exchange to enhance their corporate governance and capital allocation to attract more foreign investors. Oasis Management, a famously aggressive Hong Kong-based activist fund, has launched several high-profile campaigns against Japanese firms, demanding changes. Oasis is a major shareholder in DIC, owning an 8.6-percent stake in the company.

The DIC’s final decision regarding operating strategies will be made by the end of 2024, after which the museum will be closed to implement the conclusive changes. 

Annette Meier is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.

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