Association for Corporate Support of the Arts. - Kigyo Mécénat Kyogikai

Mitsubishi-Jisho ARTIUM, which means “art stadium,” was created in 1989 in Tenjin, Fukuoka City, the largest downtown area in Kyushu to serve as a transmission point for contemporary art. Its 144m2 gallery is located on the eighth floor of the Inter Media Station (IMS) building, which is Mitsubishi Jisho’s first fully-fledged commercial building. The gallery was designed in accordance with the building’s basic concept and is operated by IMS in cooperation with the Nishinippon Shimbun, a newspaper that covers the Kyushu regional block. It holds about ten exhibitions each year, meaning that it has held more than 250 in the 23 years since it opened.
The gallery’s greatest feature lies in the fact that from its location in Fukuoka it has introduced visionary and innovative exhibitions of contemporary artists who are active both in Japan and overseas well ahead of public art museums. It has featured artists such as C. Boltanski (1992), Nam June Paik (1996), Tadanori Yokoo (1994, 1999), Yayoi Kusama (1996), and Yoshitomo Nara (1996). The gallery has steadily broadened its audience over the past 20 years, and by enhancing its initiatives for cooperating with local educational institutions and its outreach and educational programs it has increased the number of high school and college students among the gallery visitors.
Its approach of carefully scrutinizing the leading-edge art scenes both in Japan and elsewhere for cultural expressions that should be bequeathed to the future and promptly transmitting these from Fukuoka to the world in an ongoing manner will continue to play a role in the future cultural creation hereafter as a place embracing new art forms.