An interview i did with Oliver Watson (co-founder of the Tokyo Art Book Fair) just went up at Dazed Online (HERE)

DD: Do you think there are some qualities that separate Japanese and Western publications?

Oliver Watson: There is a artfulness here in Japan, a sense of refinement. Art and production and craft are established here in a way that isn’t elsewhere.

DD: Japan also seems overwhelming visually oriented, do you think that comes across at a fair like yours?

Oliver Watson: I do, perhaps it has something to do with the way Western art often came into Japan via books. Foreign imports would be hard to read, so essentially they are rendered as purely visual, devoid of textual analysis: without literary content. These books would function on purely visually level.

DD: In the same way as pre-colombian books, just visual, a lexicon through pictographs. But then, aren’t these small artists’ books at risk of being reduced to style and coming out as culturally meaningless?

Oliver Watson: Yes, indeed that is a risk. That is happening with the kind of books we have been talking about, and it floods the culture with mediocre work, however it also has the effect of waking-up the brighter individuals involved and forcing them to reinvent and push in new directions. It’s a regenerative process.