Saito Keita

Born in 1987 in Ota Ward, Tokyo. After graduating from high school, Saito launched SHIBUHOUSE, a city-based land art and communal practice, in 2008. Initiated outside established institutions, the project quickly sparked public debate and was selected as a Discursive Platform for Roppongi Crossing 2013 (Mori Art Museum), and has since been cited as one of the defining curatorial platforms of the 2010s. From 2014 to 2015, he presented the theatre work Kigeki/Higeki at The Saison Foundation / Morishita Studio and Musashino Culture City / Kichijoji Theatre. In 2016, he curated and organized the exhibition Private War and Landscape at the Maruki Gallery for the Hiroshima Panels, pursuing a practice that foregrounds the relationship between historical memory and contemporary society. Between 2015 and 2019, he founded and published the critical journal Arguments (three issues), creating a forum for theoretical and practical debate around contemporary art. Since 2019, he has lectured on contemporary art at Bigakko—an important hub for Tokyo’s avant-garde art scene—and has also been active as the host of the YouTube channel Geijutsu Bunka no Katteguchi. In 2022, he was appointed Director of Arts Council Kanazawa.

Saito’s practice has drawn attention as an attempt to redefine the social context of contemporary art—caught between institutions and the market—amid Japan’s economic stagnation and a post-media environment. Moving fluidly across the roles of artist, curator, and producer, he integrates art-making, exhibition-making, criticism, and education. Through this cross-disciplinary stance, he approaches contemporary art not merely as a field of expression, but as a means of critically examining the social infrastructure itself, including institutions, economies, localities, and communities.