Keith Whittle (KW): Thank you for agreeing to meet. I know you only have a short time to speak today so do please let’s begin. Can you give an overview of your professional background and current role as the Director of Ikon? I would then like to discuss in more detail your interest in, experiences of and work in curating Japanese contemporary art. Keith Whittle (KW): Over the last 15 years you have curated several important solo and group exhibitions and written extensively on Contemporary Japanese Art. Exhibitions such as Facts of Life: Contemporary Japanese Art (Hayward Gallery, London, 2001); Tatsumi Orimoto, Bread Man (IKON Gallery 2001); On Kawara, Consciousness. Meditation. Watcher on the Hills (IKON Gallery 2003); Atsuko Tanaka, The Art of Connecting (IKON Gallery, 2011), to mention but a few. All demonstrate considerable interest in and commitment to profiling modern and contemporary art from Japan. Could you possibly outline further your strong curatorial focus on Asian contemporary art and more specifically Japanese art? Jonathan Watkins (JW): I had been aware of contemporary Japanese art for some years, long before I went to Japan. When I was the director of Chisenhale Gallery, I did an exhibition with Yoko Terauchi. That was in 1994. And at the Serpentine, I worked with Kawamata, whose work I saw at Annely Juda Gallery in London and was completely bowled over by it. Then I left the Serpentine in ‘97 and was appointed artistic director for the 1998 Biennale of Sydney. That was a wonderful