Mr Fujimoto’s Gallery

We meet Kaoru Fujimoto on a beautiful morning in Setagaya, a peaceful corner of Tokyo, surrounded by parks, bakeries and the soft chirp of birdsong. Like plenty of things in the city, the location is understated. A single room that opens out onto the street with a low ceiling and a handful of paintings hanging on white walls.

Inside a former fruit and vegetable shop, Fujimoto runs Inherit Gallery, a small-but-impactful space that champions young and emerging Japanese artists. “There’s a lot of new and exciting energy in Tokyo at the moment,” says Fujimoto, sat on a bench in the sunshine, pausing thoughtfully between sentences.

A photographer in his former life, Fujimoto took over the space with the idea of turning it into a studio. After a while he connected with young painters, sculptors and photographers who had recently graduated, or were at the early stages of their careers, and they needed somewhere to show their work.

“It made a lot of sense,” he says, “There weren’t really any galleries in this area before, but there were a lot of young, creative people. It was a good place to come for a drink, but now Setagaya is an artistic area too.”

Along with Inherit, Fujimoto opened another gallery, OFO, in a brightly-lit cubby hole of a space just down the road. “I’ve been lucky to be able to bring some new life into this area,” he says. “Tokyo might not have as big an art scene as other cities, but what we do have is unique. I’m excited to see it grow from here.”