Aichi Triennale Shuts Down Censorship Show
On August 3, organizers of the 2019 Aichi Triennale shuttered “After ’Freedom of Expression?’”—a show about the history of censored works in Japan at Nagoya’s Aichi Prefecture Museum of Art—after receiving threats from members of the public. Those demanding its closure were incensed by Kim Seo-kyung and Kim Eun-sung’s Statue of Peace (2011)—a sculpture of a seated comfort woman representing the estimated 200,000 women in Korea, China, and across Asia who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army from the 1930s to the end of World War II.
Aichi governor Hideaki Omura said at a press conference that the Triennale had received threatening emails, phone calls, and faxes. In one fax, the sender claimed they would bring a gasoline canister
