Exhibitions
Current
Re: Startline 1963−1970/2023
Sympathetic Relations between the Museum and Artists as Seen in the Trends in Contemporary Japanese Art Exhibition
2023.04.28 fri. - 07.02 sun.
Trends in Contemporary Japanese Art was a series of contemporary art exhibitions that was launched to coincide with the opening of the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto in 1963.
Introducing a wide range of pioneering trends in art of the 1960s, an era that saw tremendous changes in concepts, formats, and materials, the series garnered a great deal of attention at the time. While introducing some of the principal works that were featured in Trends in Contemporary Japanese Art, the present exhibition revisits the museum’s start some 60 years ago by tracing contemporary curators’ view of the art scene and their vision of the museum.
* Main Image:SUGA Kishio, Infinite Situation(Mugen Jokyo), 1970, Photo:ANZAÏ Shigeo / ANZAÏ Photo Archive, The National Art Center, Tokyo ©Estate of Shigeo AnzaÏ,Courtesy of Zeit-Foto
Upcoming
The Sodeisha Group: An Era Born Out of Avant-garde Ceramics
2023.07.19 wed. - 09.24 sun.The Sodeisha group was founded by the artists Yagi Kazuo, Kano Tetsuo, Yamada Hikaru, Matsui Yoshisuke, and Suzuki Osamu in 1948. While the group’s members came and went over the years, Sodeisha remained at the forefront of Japanese ceramics for a total of 50 years. When considering the period as whole, however, we find that the first half of the group’s activities played a particularly important role in the Japanese ceramic world. Along with Sodeisha’s own works, this exhibition, focusing on the first 25 years of the group’s career, from 1948 to 1973, includes pieces by the Shikokai group and other figures associated with the avant-garde ceramic movement of the day. The show serves as a reexamination of Sodeisha’s activities, a group that played a key role in establishing Japanese avant-garde ceramics.
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The Kyoto Art World Comes of Age
A New Generation Takes Over from Seiho and Shoen
2023.10.13 fri. - 12.10 sun.
It would be no exaggeration to say that the history of the Kyoto art world in the late 19th and 20th century was a history of confrontations with Tokyo and the West. The youthful period of modern Kyoto painting from the late Meiji to the early Showa era is considered to be especially important, and in this exhibition, consisting of four sections, we present some 80 masterpieces of the period by the group’s leader Tsuchida Bakusen (1887-1936), Ono Chikkyo, Sakakibara Shiho, and Okamoto Shinso. But not only did these painters include younger figures like Tsuchida, they also encompassed a group of older artists such as Uemura Shoen, Kikuchi Keigetsu, and Konoshima Okoku, and masters such as Takeuchi Seiho. In addition to challenging Tokyo, the West, and even the traditions and history of Kyoto, the site of the artists’ own activities, they combined qualities such as excess and delicacy, which are often a hallmark of youth, and realized a body of works that exudes a charm unlike that of a mature artist.
* Main Image: ONO Chikkyo, Home Lanscape, 1917, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
Past Exhibitions