Best Exhibitions Starting in December 2024
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Tokyo Art Beat presents a selection of the best exhibitions opening in December 2024. Bookmark the exhibitions on the TAB website or TAB app and never miss the openings and closings.
- 【Tokyo】Mana Konishi "Wherever" (Fuchu Art Museum)
- 【Tokyo】The Japanese Art of Happinessー From Ito Jakuchu to Yokoyama Taikan and Kawabata Ryushi (Yamatane Museum of Art)
- 【Tokyo】Ryuichi Sakamoto: Seeing Sound, Hearing Time (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)
- 【Tokyo】Yosuke Amemiya "Watari-um, The Watari Museum of Art, Which Has Not Melted Yet" (Watari-um, The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art)
- 【Tokyo】Shared Beauty: Detached Segments of Ancient Japanese Calligraphy (The Nezu Museum)
- 【Kanagawa】The Secrets of Color: From Impressionism to Contemporary Art (Pola Museum of Art)
- 【Kanagawa】Takashi Kuribayashi: Roots (Museum of Modern Art, Hayama)
- 【Kyoto】Kuroda Tatsuaki: A Journey Through Wood, Lacquer, and Mother-of-Pearl (The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto)
- 【Osaka】Space In-Between: Shizuko Yoshikawa and Josef Müller-Brockmann (Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka)
- 【Hyogo】1995 ⇄ 2025 Our Lives Since January 17, 1995 (Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art)
【Tokyo】Mana Konishi "Wherever" (Fuchu Art Museum)
Artist Mana Konishi is widening the possibilities of landscape painting. Her intelligent works, which capture magnificent landscapes on large canvases and are meticulously painted down to the smallest detail, are widely admired by the audience. When she was forced to live in isolation due to the pandemic, Konishi visited the municipal park within walking distance of her home, the adjacent greenhouse, and the stream that flows nearby and continued to paint these landscapes. This exhibition will be Konishi's first large-scale solo exhibition at an art museum, and in addition to her previous representative works, it will also feature many new works.
Venue: Fuchu Art Museum
Schedule: December 14 - February 24
Fee: Adults ¥800, University and High School Students ¥400, Junior High and Elementary School Students ¥200
【Tokyo】The Japanese Art of Happinessー From Ito Jakuchu to Yokoyama Taikan and Kawabata Ryushi (Yamatane Museum of Art)
Since ancient times, people have wished for a happy life and entrusted their hopes to patterns and shapes. Japanese art is full of symbols of good fortune that are displayed at celebrations such as births and weddings, seasonal festivals, and everyday life. This exhibition focuses on art that expresses wishes for long life, the blessing of children, wealth, and prosperity, and includes many familiar motifs such as pine, bamboo, and plum, and the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, as well as other works that can be said to be lucky motifs for people today.
Venue: Yamatane Museum of Art
Schedule: December 14 - February 24
Fee: Adults ¥1400, University and High School Students ¥500, Junior High School Students and Under free
【Tokyo】Ryuichi Sakamoto: Seeing Sound, Hearing Time (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)
A composer and an artist, Ryuichi Sakamoto continuously paved the way for his era through diverse and cutting-edge artistic activities. Since the 2000s, he devoted himself to creating three-dimensional sound installations in exhibition spaces, which he developed and realized in collaboration with various artists. Focusing entirely on large-scale installation works, this first comprehensive exhibition in Japan looks back on Sakamoto's pioneering, experimental creative artworks, including some of his most well-known previous pieces and new works that he envisioned for this particular occasion before his passing, which will be dynamically constructed in and around the museum building.
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Schedule: December 21 - March 30
Fee: Adults ¥2400; University Students, Seniors 65 & Over ¥1700; High School and Junior High School Students ¥960; Elementary School Students and Under free
【Tokyo】Yosuke Amemiya "Watari-um, The Watari Museum of Art, Which Has Not Melted Yet" (Watari-um, The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art)
This exhibition provides an overview of artist Yosuke Amemiya's practice from the beginning of his career. From the works of the early 2000sーthe melted apple sculptures, the document video of Ishinomaki Thirteen Minutes, a paper of Perfectly Ordinary Stones, Carried For 1,300 Years, to the latest VR work, which will be filmed at the museum during the installation for this exhibitionーhis works provide new art experiences, including talking and speaking, painting images, and elements of songs, musical instruments, and dance. In addition, Amemiya will hold an open practice for his final work every Saturday evening, and visitors can witness his creation.
Venue: Watari-um, The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art
Schedule: December 21 - March 30
Fee: Adults ¥1500; University Students (Under 25), High School Students, Seniors 70 & Over, Persons with Disability Certificates + 1 Companion ¥1300; Junior High and Elementary School Students ¥500
【Tokyo】Shared Beauty: Detached Segments of Ancient Japanese Calligraphy (The Nezu Museum)
In Japan, examples of old calligraphy are generally called kohitsu, "ancient handwriting." In a narrow sense, that term refers to Japanese calligraphy in poetry collections from the Heian through the Kamakura periods. During the Heian period, aristocrats commissioned talented calligraphers to copy poetry anthologies or their private collections as gifts or furnishings. During the Muromachi period, single sheets or pages or even a few lines were extracted from those works for the increasingly popular tea gatherings and personal appreciation. Those segments detached from ancient calligraphic works are known as kohitsugire, "detached segments of ancient Japanese calligraphy." This exhibition showcases examples of these detached segments of ancient calligraphy from the Heian through the Kamakura periods, primarily from the museum collection.
Venue: The Nezu Museum
Schedule: December 21 - February 9
Fee: [Online ticket] Adults ¥1300, University and High School Students ¥1000, Junior High School Students and Under free
【Kanagawa】The Secrets of Color: From Impressionism to Contemporary Art (Pola Museum of Art)
Due to the diversification and personalization of contemporary society, color has become an increasingly important role not only in fashion and interior design but also in fields such as the environment, health, and beauty. Meanwhile, as smartphones now can reproduce over one billion colors, we have become unknowingly engulfed in a vast world of color. Focusing on color in art from the modern to the contemporary era, this exhibition aims to reconsider the role of color while touching on subjects such as the relationship between color theory and the materials used to express color.
Venue: Pola Museum of Art
Schedule: December 14 - May 18
Fee: Adults ¥2200, University and High School Students ¥1700, Junior High School Students and Under free, Persons with Disability Certificates + 1 Companion ¥1100
【Kanagawa】Takashi Kuribayashi: Roots (Museum of Modern Art, Hayama)
Born and raised in Nagasaki, Takashi Kuribayashi lives between Indonesia and Japan. Since the beginning of his career, he has consistently presented works in Japan and abroad that urge viewers to have physical experiences through various media, including drawings, installation works, and videos, under the theme of "boundaries." Created from the artist's perspective, this latest solo exhibition uses various spaces outside the exhibition room. On view are installations conceived for spaces not initially proposed for exhibition, as well as previously unpublished drawings and video works, to show the "boundary = now" between the past and the future of the artist who has been expanding his areas of activity in recent years.
Venue: Museum of Modern Art, Hayama
Schedule: December 14 - March 2
Fee: Adults ¥1000; Under 20s and University Students ¥850, Seniors 65 & Over ¥500; High School Students ¥100; Junior High School Students and Under, Persons with Disability Certificates + 1 Companion free
【Kyoto】Kuroda Tatsuaki: A Journey Through Wood, Lacquer, and Mother-of-Pearl (The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto)
Based in Kyoto, Kuroda Tatsuaki, one of Japan's preeminent wood and lacquer artisans, was the first person to be designated as the holder of an important intangible cultural property (Living National Treasure) in woodworking. Kuroda is also known for questioning the then-standard practice of labor division in lacquer-making. He developed a comprehensive approach, doing everything from creating the design to performing the groundwork and applying the decorations. Kuroda pioneered a unique creative world based on a union of practicality, ornamentation, and material properties. Marking the 120th anniversary of Kuroda's birth, this exhibition presents the life of this artist who made a significant mark on the history of Japanese crafts through a collection of works spanning his career.
Venue: The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
Schedule: December 17 - March 2
Fee: Adults ¥1200; University Students ¥500; High School Students and Under, Persons with Disability Certificates + 1 Companion free
【Osaka】Space In-Between: Shizuko Yoshikawa and Josef Müller-Brockmann (Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka)
This exhibition showcases the activities and work of the husband-and-wife couple of Josef Müller-Brockmann, Switzerland's best-known typographer, and his wife, Japanese artist Shizuko Yoshikawa. The exhibition commemorates the 160th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Japan and is the first large-scale exhibition to feature either Yoshikawa or Müller-Brockmann in Japan.
Venue: Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka
Schedule: December 21 - March 2
Fee: Adults ¥1700, University and High School Students ¥1100, Junior High School Students and Under free
【Hyogo】1995 ⇄ 2025 Our Lives Since January 17, 1995 (Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art)
On January 17, 1995, the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake caused extensive damage to the predecessor of the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, both in terms of the building and the collection. The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art opened in 2002 as a cultural symbol of post-earthquake reconstruction and has held exhibitions related to the earthquake. However, this is the first independently planned exhibition in the museum's history. The participating artists are Tabaimo, Tomoko Yoneda, Miwa Yanagi, Osamu Kokufu, Yuichiro Tamura, Mirai Moriyama, and Tetsuya Umeda. This exhibition will be an opportunity to reexamine the theme of hope from a variety of perspectives and through a variety of expressions.
Venue: Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art
Schedule: December 21 - March 9
Fee: Adults ¥1600, University Students ¥1000, Seniors 70 & Over ¥800, Persons with Disability Certificates (Adults) ¥400, Persons with Disability Certificates (University Students) ¥250, High School Students and Under free
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