Call for Support
- Save the Ashiya City Museum of Art and History

1) Background Information
According to the announced plan of the city of Ashiya in
Japan, the Ashiya City Museum of Art and History will
either be privatized, sold, or closed by 2006, as a
drastic measure to restructure the city's budget.

Since its opening in 1991, the museum has been been
promoting the Gutai as part of their mandate to support
local art movements. Most alarmingly, the city council has
yet to demonstrate a plan for preserving the museum's
important collections and archives on the Gutai, among
other collections.
(The museum's website is http://www.ashiya-web.or.jp/museum/f_top.htm).

The current restructuring plan encompasses wide-ranging
budget-cuts in education, welfare, and culture, including
the closing of hospitals as well as the museum. The city
council will begin deliberations on the issue beginning
on December 2nd. As the insiders' voice will be suppressed
by the council, any kind of "external pressures" we might
be able to exert on the council will help the museum.

Therefore, under the auspice of PoNJA-GenKon (Post-1945
Japanese Art Discussion Group/Gendai Bijutsu Kondankai),
we urge you to sign the online petition and/or write to
the city council to protest the city's plan to privatize,
sell, or close the museum. (The full petition text is
pasted at the end of this e-mail).

Your immediate action is required, for we would like to
forward our petition to the city council before the
December 2nd meeting. We set a preliminary deadline for
November 25th, but your continuing support as well as
your action after this date will still be appreciated as
we continue to monitor the situation and support the
museum in every way possible.

Reiko Tomii, Ph.D.
(independent scholar and owner of PoNJA-GenKon)
Midori Yoshimoto, Ph.D.
(Gallery Director/Assistant Professor,
New Jersey City University)
Ming Tiampo, Ph.D.
(Lecturer, Art History Department,
Carleton University, Ottawa)
Hiroko Ikegami
(Ph.D. candidate, Yale University)

2) Ways to Help

A) Sign the Online Petition
Petition Deadline: 11/25 (first collation), petition site
effective until 12/31
1) Go to
http://www.petitiononline.com/ashiya/petition.html
and our petition should appear.
2) Click "click here to sign the petition."
3) Enter necessary information.
4) You can preview your information before submission.

Notes on "Email Address Privacy Option": In this petition,
you may choose from the three levels of "Email Address
Privacy Option.". We encourage you to choose "Available
to Petition Author," which will allow us, the petition
authors, to send you information about the museum in the
future.

B) Forward this e-mail to potential supporters for signing
the petition

C) Talk to your senior colleagues (museum directors,
curators, academic advisors, professors, etc.) and ask
them to sign the petition and/or write a letter
(see D below).

D) In addition to signing the petition, sending a physical
letter (snail mail/fax/e-mail) will add volume to our voice.

1) You may use the petition text, pasted below, write
your own letter, or add your own comments to the text
of the petition.
2) Address the letter jointly to:
Mr. Ken Yamanaka, Mayor of Ashiya
Mr. Shozo Tsuzuki, Chair, Ashiya City Council
3) Always include "Title" and/or Subject line:
Save Ashiya City Museum of Art and History
4) Send
e-mail to: infocity.ashiya.hyogo.jp
fax to: (011) 81-797-38-2170
snail mail to: 7-6 Seidocho, Ashiya, 659-8501 Japan
5) Please copy your letter to Curatorial Dept., Ashiya
City Museum of Art and History at
e-mail: asbihakuares.eonet.ne.jp
fax: (011) 81-797-38-5434 (museum)

Mayor of Ashiya
Ashiya City Council
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology

We, the undersigned, are writing to protest the Ashiya
City's plan to privatize, sell, or close the Ashiya City
Museum of Art and History.

Since its opening in 1991, the museum has been instrumental
in promoting Japanese modern and contemporary art as well as
preserving Ashiya's local history. It has, however, always
had an impact beyond the local, extending into the
international. The museum has been a crucial voice in
articulating a place for Japanese modern and contemporary
art on the world stage by functioning as the archive and
international center of academic research for Gutai, the
foremost avant-garde art movement of post-1945 Japan.

We adamantly oppose Ashiya City's plan to privatize. sell,
or close this museum. Ashiya City will be harming its
international reputation as a cultural city by closing the
city's most active cultural institution. By silencing or
crippling the Ashiya City Museum of Art and History's
ability to disseminate information and scholarship about
the Gutai, the city will also be squandering one of the
most powerful tools of cultural diplomacy that has projected
the image of Japan as a dynamic, creative, modern and
international culture: the Gutai.

We implore Ashiya City to find an alternative to save the
museum and its current functions intact. In its process of
restructuring, Ashiya City should reexamine its priorities
and acknowledge the importance of the Ashiya City Museum in
putting the city on the world map, and its critical role as
the custodian of Gutai history.

We strongly urge Ashiya City to give serious consideration
to this statement and sincerely hope that the city will
reconsider its plans for the Ashiya City Museum of Art
and History.