Japanese art even at the commencement of the 21st Century resides as an isolated forum, going through what some may consider an identity crisis. While Japanese art strives for its own distinct aesthetic identity unique to Japan within a larger context, Japanese art also inversely clings to traditional art disciplines and curatorial practices not keeping with current global contemporary art paradigms. This paradox within Japanese art hinders its collection at both a national and international level. Japanese art museums and galleries rarely collect contemporary Japanese-produced works whether made at home or abroad, thus, international collectors remain equally disinterested. The Japanese art institutions perceive Japanese productions lack a national and place in global contemporary art markets. This is further compounded since values related to collection and art appreciation impede Japanese art from progressing from traditional forms to better address the international art scene.

The Japanese word for art is bijutsu, bi written with the kanji pictogram for 'beauty', and jutsu written with the kanji pictogram for 'skill'. This phrasing, art being 'the skill of beauty', could justify Japanese institution of art collecting or interest in artwork depicting on skill and technical merit. This scheme for how to appreciate a visual artwork, impacts the evolution and trend towards tradition-based art practices such as sculpture, photography, and painting, in which technical merit can be properly accessed and appraised. For painting in particular, Japanese educational institutions divide the discipline into two categories: Japanese painting and 'western' styled painting. Skill marks the difference between these two categories; Japanese painting uses diverse materials from the West such as mineral pigments, silk, and ink while Western painting is considered in terms of works produced in oil. Skill is strongly emphasized in all art education from elementary and secondary art programs with students expected to copy realist imagery. This emphasis of skill-based education creates a social fabric that continues to promote traditionally based criterion of how to evaluate art early on.

Hence, in the "Japanese school of art appreciation", viewers seek out the familiar. To re-iterate, Japanese and Western painting are hundreds of years old with deeply-established canons and lexicons of written history behind each and Japanese students are aware of this. But "rather than attend galleries to see new works, viewers attend galleries to confirm what they have already seen in books," states Koichi Kawasaki, practicing artist and chief curator for the Ashiya City Museum of Art and History in Hyogo, Japan. As a result, the majority of Japanese art museums and galleries tend to show works incorporating traditional techniques and familiar subject matter as a method to stabilize and continue solid gallery attendance. This preference for the familiar in Japanese art appreciation leads to cyclical practices of both art making and collection, thus leaving limited room for the development and exploration of contemporary and conceptual art to enter the art institution arena. Only a handful of contemporary art galleries exist in Japan staging large-scale exhibitions and tours of canonically well-established works which will meet with community support. The latter is important in order to help secure funds and publicity from newspaper groups and corporations. However, those special interests do impose on how gallery spaces operate. With such practices in place, a general hesitation towards contemporary work, international endeavours of the Japanese art institutions are constantly climbing a steep uphill battle to chance aesthetic viewing and ultimately cultural values.

Mr. Koichi Kawasaki is chief curator of the Ashiya City Museum of Art and History and operates one of many civic museums found across Japan's prefectures. Every prefecture or province in Japan boasts its own art museum, and likewise most cities within each district will also operate an additional art museum. These museums compliment countless private galleries and rental galleries in addition to artist-run centres, educational and interactive facilities as well as corporate-owned display spaces. With so many art exhibition spaces in Japan, gallery attendance is always a primary concern for curators, thus, causing reliance on accommodating the Japanese demand for familiar work. The Ashiya City Museum of Art and History is unique among Japan's civic art museums as it is supports both the artwork of Ashiya-based artists as well as presents artifacts from Ashiya's geographical history for public interpretation and education. The Ashiya City Museum of Art and History focused on presenting local interests.

All prefectural and civic galleries in Japan, like the Ashiya City Museum of Art and History, are mandated to collect works by local artists residing in the municipality. Though as a brilliant coincidence for the Ashiya City Museum, its founder, Yoshihara Jiro, was part of the famous Gutai performance group of the late 1950's and promoted contemporary avant-garde art practice. Thanks to Jira, the Gutai group's artwork, correspondence, and related ephemera from the era are part of the current collection.

The Gutai group has a distinct prominence in art and world history, creating new artistic expression in theatre, dance, performance, painting, and other media. The Gutai group worked under Jiro's instruction and guidance to "create something that has never been created before", and subsequently achieved international exposure and interest which was further propelled by their own internationally distributed publication, also called Gutai. The international notoriety of the group placed the Ashiya City Museum of Art and History in a completely unique situation that differentiated it from Japan's other civic museums. This international exposure enabled the museum to form relations with curators from other countries which also continues to generate interest in Gutai collection. Given the solid Gutai collection at the museum, many requests are made from international partners to exhibit this Japanese work elsewhere in the world. Curator Kawasaki, by default, consequently has inherited a unique role as an internationally practicing Japanese curator. "Not many Japanese galleries work in international collaboration. Individual artists or curators may be internationally involved out of their own interest, but very few, perhaps two or three, Japanese curators practice on a global scale."