A press conference for the CREAM – International Festival for Arts and Media 2009 that will commence on 31 October was held on 30 October at the Shinko Pier, one of the venues for the Festival. At the press conference, Fujihata Masaki (Director of the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts), a participating artist and deputy director of the Festival’s organizing committee, publicly announced the withdrawal of his work from the festival (effective from 3 November when the forums are complete). He gave as reasons for his withdrawal his dissatisfaction with BankART Studio NYK (Bashamichi) as the exhibition venue for his work Simultaneous Echos (2009) and the difference in the treatment of Japanese and overseas artists. The press release that he distributed at the press conference has been uploaded to his ART iT ArtBlog.
