Consuming the Tower of Babel and Japanese Public Art Museums-The Exhibition of Bruegel's "The Tower of Babel" and the Babel-mori Project

Two Japanese public art museums, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Gallery and the National Art Museum of Osaka, hosted Project Babel, which included the Babel-mori (Heaping plate of food items imitating the Tower of Babel) project. This was part of an advertising campaign for the traveling exhibition &quo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Religions
Main Author: Uno, Kei (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: MDPI [2019]
In: Religions
Further subjects:B fundamental law of education
B Japanese public art museum
B the Tower of Babel
B freedom of expression
B museum and religious artifacts
B Babel-mori project
B museum education
B Pieter Bruegel I
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Description
Summary:Two Japanese public art museums, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Gallery and the National Art Museum of Osaka, hosted Project Babel, which included the Babel-mori (Heaping plate of food items imitating the Tower of Babel) project. This was part of an advertising campaign for the traveling exhibition "BABEL Collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen: Bruegel's 'The Tower of Babel' and Great 16th Century Masters" in 2017. However, Babel-mori completely misconstrued the meaning of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9. I explore the opinions of the curators at the art museums who hosted it and the university students who took my interview on this issue. I will also discuss the treatment of artwork with religious connotations in light of education in Japan. These exhibitions of Christian artwork provide important evidence on the contemporary reception of Christianity in Japan and, more broadly, on Japanese attitudes toward religious minorities.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel10030158