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In the five years since he became Japan's first foreign museum director, David Elliott has shaken up the Tokyo scene by pulling in crowds to modern art exhibitions on the 53rd floor of a skyscraper.
Elliott, the outgoing director of the Mori Art Museum, now hopes to do the same as head of another high-profile new museum, the Istanbul Modern.
But the Briton with flamboyant silver hair said he was well-aware that Japan's taste for sometimes "perverse" art may not play as well in the Islamic world.
The Istanbul Modern, the first major museum in Turkey dedicated to modern art, opened its doors in December 2004 in a renovated former customs warehouse on the southern shore of the Bosphorus River which separates Europe and Asia.
"The place, the situation -- geographically, geopolitically, artistically -- is absolutely fascinating," Elliott told AFP in an interview before leaving for Turkey.
"Not only Turkey, but the whole region -- from the Balkans, the Caucasus, Western Asia, the Middle East and even North Africa -- is changing in many interesting ways and artists are reflecting that, in fact anticipating that," he said.
The Istanbul Modern, in early exhibitions, focused on themes such as the portrayal of women in modern Turkish art as the predominantly Islamic country Westernized and modernized.
The Istanbul Modern "is still a baby that needs some spanking and some discipline," Elliott, who takes over the Turkish museum on November 1, said with a chuckle.
"I've always made something of a job of either creating places or bringing them back from the dead," he said.
The Mori Art Museum is the brainchild of Minoru Mori, one of Japan's most powerful property tycoons.
Opened to the public in 2003, the Mori Art Museum has a sweeping view of Tokyo from the 53rd floor of Roppongi Hills, a new complex of shops, apartments and offices frequented by both tourists and the glitterati.
Elliott was named director of Mori Art in 2001 ahead of its opening. He is being replaced by the museum's deputy director, Fumio Nanjo.
While to its detractors the Mori Art Museum owes its high profile to its flashy location and marketing campaigns, Elliott is widely credited with helping push it quickly into the limelight.
In one instance, Elliott managed to pull in thousands of spectators who would normally not be interested in modern art through an exhibition entitled "Happiness."
The exhibition brought work from artists as varied as French master Henri Matisse and Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami on the meaning of being happy.
Elliott has also brought to the Mori Art Museum exhibitions of modern African and Chinese works, part of his lifelong interest in moving beyond the framework of the Western world.
The 57-year-old also brought non-Western modern art to Europe during his 20-year tenure as director of the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, England, and his later stint as head of Stockholm's Moderna Museet.
Elliott called Japan an open-minded audience and credited the country with producing some of the most "emphatic, goofy and not to mention perverse" art to the world.
He expected greater sensitivity in Turkey.
"They have certain very high profile censorship issues, particularly with regard to literature," he said.
"And of course like here, they have a strong nationalist tendency in politics," he said.
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, who won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, was put on trial over his comments on the mass killing of Armenians in World War II, although the case was later dropped.
But travelling from Asia's easternmost edge to its westernmost tip, Elliott said he still planned to present art that challenges audiences.
"If it's any good, anyone should be able to appreciate it in some way. And there are many many different ways to appreciate something," Elliott said.
"If it's not that complex and multifaceted and open, it's probably not good."
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AFPEntertainment-Japan-Turkey-Britain-art-museum
AFP 311139 GMT 10 06
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