As long as the nation's budget is being injected into an organization, it is natural for it to be under pressure to let the public understand the group's activities and system. It is vital to promote reform that responds to the changing times and enhances the significance of the organization's existence.
A panel of experts from the Cultural Affairs Agency has compiled a draft reform plan for the Japan Art Academy. Pointing out that the organization has seldom gained recognition from society, the panel made a wide range of proposals from the selection of members to the content of the members' activities.
The academy is a special body of the Cultural Affairs Agency with the aim of promoting Japanese arts, selecting artists with outstanding achievements as its members and giving them special treatment by providing them with pension benefits. It also contributes to the development of the arts and offers opinions to the commissioner for cultural affairs.
There can be no more than 120 members, and its annual budget exceeds 500 million yen. However, as its activities focus mainly on awarding the Japan Art Academy prize and displaying works from its collection, the academy has for a long time been criticized as being an organization in name only. It is said that throughout its history the academy has expressed its official opinion only twice.
It seems that the academy has been complacent with tradition and negligent in its efforts to reform its inward-looking and rigid organization.
The academy was originally founded as the Fine Arts Reviewing Committee near the end of the Meiji era (1868-1912). Reorganized into the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in the Taisho era (1912-1926), the prototype of the current academy was established in 1937.
Although more than 100 years have passed since the establishment of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, the organization has not caught up with the changing concepts of culture and the arts in the meantime.
The academy consists of three sections: fine arts; literature; and music, drama and dance. These three sections cover 16 categories, each of which has a fixed number of members. However, nearly half the members are in the section of fine arts, where excessive emphasis has obviously been placed.
Since 2007, when kabuki and bunraku puppet theater were among the arts established as independent categories, systematic reform has not been made.
In the draft reform plan, the panel proposes the creation of new categories: photography and video; manga; and movies. It is reasonable to aim to create a balanced structure by incorporating people who have contributed to fields that have developed throughout and beyond the 20th century.
There are also many problems in selecting members. Currently, members of the relevant section recommend candidates and select members through voting in that section. The selection process has been closed in a way that ignores the internal rules that say that, when deemed necessary, external opinions can be heard.
The draft reform plan proposes a method in which outside experts selected by the Cultural Affairs Agency and active members recommend candidates separately, narrow down the candidates through discussions, then select members by a vote of the relevant section.
The academy should be an organization in which its members are selected in a way that many people can understand and its activities are carried out in a visible manner.
-- The original Japanese article appeared in The Yomiuri Shimbun on June 1, 2021.
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