Asian art world only a short time ago, is now completely overshadowed by the dynamism of its rapidly expanding neighbor, China. In fact, even during the boom times of the 1980s, Tokyo did not witness the steady stream of gallery launches funded by Europeans or Americans that are taking place in Beijing or Shanghai now. KW: Having recently been appointed as one of the Joint Artistic Directors of the 9th Gwangju Biennale 2012, and having worked with such prominent Chinese artists’ such as Ai Weiwei, then I wonder if you could tell me what you see as the reasons why Chinese contemporary art has taken centre stage on the international art market, and as such played a major role in defining the ‘contemporary’ and why China has such powerful and extremely vibrant and internationally recognised cutting edge arts scene? MK: Contemporary art is always a reflection of society. Artistic creation comes out from experience. If artists are living in a society going through radical or rapid change both, economically and sociologically, it is very natural to see them reflected in the contemporary art works from that region. So it is only natural that the world is looking at China not solely because of their artistic quality but more for their social economical changes. Also, Chinese people are becoming more affluent, with increasing amounts of money to spend, and Chinese Art is a representation of the polarisation of the people’s lives. We could look at the fact that Chinese market is mostly supported by Chinese people. In fact, there are several significant Japanese collectors who supports Japanese contemporary art. Even in Japanese art, you could