01The 2009 edition
The third edition in 2009 included 16 shops and 25 groups of artists. Works by emerging artists appeared in premises throughout Aosando. The event brought different exhibitions into the street’s ordinary spaces, creating a sequence of encounters as visitors moved from one shop to another.
The fair had started in 2007 on the street linking Aoyamadori and Omotesando. The first introduction set out a straightforward format: use shop spaces to exhibit and sell different kinds of art, without restricting the program to one genre or nationality. That relationship between ordinary premises and artworks continued to define the event.
02An approachable encounter with contemporary art
The fair’s stated aims were to bring the street to life with art and to introduce the pleasure of purchasing works by emerging artists. Its introduction acknowledged the idea that art could seem expensive or difficult to approach. It also explained that emerging artists often offered more accessible works and that some visitors had made their first art purchase at the fair.
The shop setting mattered to this idea. A visitor could enter a familiar kind of space and encounter a work without first deciding to spend a day in a dedicated exhibition building. Moving along the street linked those encounters. The path between venues was part of the experience, as were the different interiors in which works appeared.
03The range of the early program
The 2008 artist page had included 27 entries covering individual artists, groups and exhibition projects. They were not simply 27 individual people. Painting, photography, fabric sculpture, light installations and design editions appeared together. The program included works that used everyday materials or considered the boundary between an artwork and an object for use.
This variety helped explain why the street was an appropriate setting for the fair. Clothing shops, interiors, galleries and other premises already placed different kinds of objects beside one another. Exhibitions added new ways to look at those spaces. The fair connected a work with the setting in which someone might encounter it, rather than separating every work from daily life.
04A street fair that expanded
In 2010, the fair expanded beyond Aosando into Omotesando, Harajuku and Cat Street. The later program also included live painting, workshops, talks and a walking event. These activities widened the ways in which visitors could engage with art: watching something being made, hearing a discussion or discovering another part of the street.
The early editions therefore provided more than a sequence of dates. They established a relationship between emerging art, everyday shops and walking through the city. The Japanese pages follow later developments in more detail, including the photography focus of 2014 and LOVE and PEACE in 2015. Those later themes belonged to their own editions and added new questions to the original format.