The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo - Past Events
Below is a list of all past events for The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Current and upcoming events, as well as other details, are available on the venue's page.
"Undressing Paintings - Japanese Nudes 1880-1945" Exhibiton
[59][17]- Media: Painting
- 2011-11-15 - 2012-01-15
Paintings of naked figures are still being produced widely, and are familiar to us. Nevertheless, the custom of depicting in works of art and publicly appreciating naked and semi-naked human bodies is...More »
Valerio Olgiati Exhibition
[83][18]- Media: Architecture - Art Talk
- 2011-11-01 - 2012-01-15
Elegantly combining daring forms and simple plans, Valerio Olgiati (b. 1958) is now attracting attention not only in Switzerland, his homeland, but also from architects around the world. This show illustrates...More »
Leiko Ikemura "Transfiguration"
[100][21]- Media: Painting - Drawing - Sculpture - Art Talk
- 2011-08-23 - 2011-10-23
A woman floats up from the canvas ground. A person is depicted with a cabbage head. A hollow girl has no legs. A monster-like face suddenly emerges out of the rocks. The somewhat mysterious figures...More »
Leo Rubinfien "Wounded Cities"
[73][7]- Media: Photography - Art Talk
- 2011-08-12 - 2011-10-23
Photographer Leo Rubinfien (born 1953) was living just two blocks away from the World Trade Center when the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011 struck. He subsequently spent much time trying to document...More »
Shigeo Toya Artist Talk
[1][0]- Media: Art Talk
- 2011-06-05 - 2011-06-05
Talk event with veteran sculptor Shigeo Toya. [Image: Shigeo Toya, “The Death of a Forest” (1989) Wood, Acrylic, 230 x 495 x 62cm Photo by Yoshihiro Kikuyama]More »
Paul Klee "Art in the Making 1883-1940"
[196][34]- Media: Painting - Art Talk
- 2011-05-31 - 2011-07-31
Swiss-born painter Paul Klee (1879-1940) has long enjoyed a warm reception in Japan, where many exhibitions of his work have been held over the years. This, however, is the first Klee exhibition to be...More »
"On the Road" Exhibition
[94][19]- Media: Painting - Photography - Video installation
- 2011-05-17 - 2011-07-31
Traveling long distances and the passage of long time may be the two elements that make up the essence of experiences on the road. Presenting 30 pieces including paintings, photographs and video pieces,...More »
"Taro Okamoto - The 100th Anniversary of His Birth" Exhibition
[140][23]- Media: Painting - Sculpture
- 2011-03-08 - 2011-05-08
Taro Okamoto (1911-1996) is probably one of the most well-known artists in Japan of the latter half of the 20th century. He created Tower of the Sun for Expo ’70 held in Osaka, made comments full of impact...More »
"Morphology of Emptiness" Exhibition
[102][11]- Media: Painting - Photography - Sculpture
- 2011-02-22 - 2011-05-08
In the figure-ground relationship, some pieces present an empty figure instead of making the figure stand out against the ground. Some three-dimensional pieces attract viewers' attention to inner hollow...More »
"Avant-Garde Nihonga 1938-1949" Exhibition
[61][13]- Media: Painting
- 2011-01-08 - 2011-02-13
The late 1930s in Japan were a period of turbulent social upheaval that saw a decisive break with the traditional aesthetic values of nihonga painting and the search for new modes of expression. Artists...More »
"Ceramic Design of Masatoshi Sakaegi - Rhythm and Waves" Exhibition
[8][0]- Media: Ceramics
- 2011-01-08 - 2011-02-13
Making free use of model molding techniques, ceramic designer Masatoshi Sakaegi (b. 1944) handles all the processes for his work, from sketching to completion, in order to connect user’s ideas to his own...More »
Saburo Aso Exhibition
[7][2]- Media: Painting
- 2010-11-09 - 2010-12-19
Saburo Aso (1913-2000) was a painter who tirelessly probed the essence of painting, always maintaining a certain tension directed against society while investigating the relationship between real and painterly...More »
Kiyoshi Suzuki "Hundred Steps and Thousand Stories"
[73][11]- Media: Photography
- 2010-10-29 - 2010-12-19
Kiyoshi Suzuki (1943–2000) is known as a photographer who never ceased exploring, in his own unique style, the possibilities of the photography book. Over his thirty-year career starting at the end of...More »
Shoen Uemura Exhibition
[18][3]- Media: Painting
- 2010-09-07 - 2010-10-17
Japanese-style painter Shoen Uemura (1875-1949) preferred motifs such as ordinary people as well as historical figures or characters yokyoku (Noh songs). She infused her subjects with strong emotions,...More »
"Drawing in the Dark" Exhibition
[10][0]- Media: Drawing - Art Talk
- 2010-08-14 - 2010-10-17
Katsuro Yoshida (1943–1999) used fingers. Abraham David Christian (b. 1952) made frottages using plants. Masato Kobayashi (b. 1957) drew candles lighting the dark. Their works highlight the “hapticness”...More »
"Where is Architecture? Seven Installations by Japanese Architects" Exhibition
[255][50]- Media: Architecture - Installation
- 2010-04-29 - 2010-08-08
This exhibition of architecture consists entirely of new installations by seven groups of Japanese architects, representing a variety of ages and styles. To create "architecture," architects are expected...More »
"Meaningful Stain" Exhibition
[84][17]- Media: Painting - Photography - Prints
- 2010-04-20 - 2010-08-08
“If you want to paint, look at walls covered with stains. There you will find countless things, from trees to faces,” said Leonardo da Vinci. These words tell us that stains are something beyond human...More »
"Chikkyo Ono - 120 Years After His Birth" Exhibition
[5][1]- Media: Painting
- 2010-03-02 - 2010-04-11
Chikkyo Ono (1889-1979) was a member of the National Painting Association (Kokuga Sosaku Kyokai) that was founded in Kyoto in 1918, known for his efforts to bring reform and a new innovative approach to...More »
William Kentridge "What We See & What We Know Thinking About History While Walking, and Thus the Drawings Began to Move..."
[85][23]- Media: Drawing - Installation - Video installation
- 2010-01-02 - 2010-02-14
William Kentridge (b. 1955 in South Africa, based in Johannesburg) began creating his signature ‘drawings in motion’ in the late 1980s. These animated works are created through the laborious process of...More »
Yoshio Hayakawa "The 'Face' and the 'Form'"
[11][6]- Media: Illustration - Painting - Drawing
- 2010-01-02 - 2010-02-14
Hayakawa Yoshio was born in 1917 in Osaka, and led the postwar graphic design world in Japan for many years. He had a far-reaching influence on younger designers, and was active until his sudden death...More »
Tatsuo Kawaguchi "Language, Time, Life"
[49][14]- Media: Sculpture - Installation
- 2009-10-14 - 2009-12-13
Tatsuo Kawaguchi is an artist who has been a leading figure in Japanese contemporary art since the 1960s. Employing diverse materials from metal, light, heat as well as fossils and plant seeds, Kawaguchi...More »
Paul Gauguin Exhibition
[112][23]- Media: Painting - Prints - Sculpture
- 2009-07-03 - 2009-09-23
The artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) turned his back on the highly developed western civilization of the end of the 19th century and made his way alone to the solitary island of Tahiti in the South Seas. It...More »
"Waiting for Video: Works From the 1960s To Today" Exhibition
[98][23]- Media: Film - Video installation - Digital
- 2009-03-31 - 2009-06-07
This exhibition presents a total of 50 films and video works created by artists from America, Europe and Japan from the 1960s to today. Nowadays, we rarely see a contemporary art exhibition that doesn't...More »
"What Lurks in Wood" Exhibition
[10][3]- Media: Painting - Sculpture - Art Talk
- 2009-03-14 - 2009-06-07
Since the ancient times Japanese people have found something supernatural in trees, and have used them for producing various images including Buddhist statues. Even after the Meiji period (1868-1912) when...More »
Yutaka Takanashi "Field Notes of Light"
[54][17]- Media: Photography
- 2009-01-20 - 2009-03-08
The nearly fifty-year career of photographer Yutaka Takanashi (b. 1935) has centered on the city. He has changed cameras and methods of walking around the city, sometimes attempting to trace accumulations...More »
"Masterpieces from the Collection: Taikan Yokoyama, Metempsychosis" Exhibition
[2][4]- Media: Painting
- 2009-01-20 - 2009-03-08
Metempsychosis by Taikan Yokoyama (1868-1958), an Important Cultural Property in our collection, will be shown in a specially installed gallery on the first floor. This forty-meter scroll painting rendered...More »
"Collage: Creation by Severance and Reconstruction" Exhibition
[33][7]- Media: Other
- 2009-01-20 - 2009-03-08
Collage, a technique in which images detached from their original contexts are assembled to create a new image, became popular since its intentional introduction in the early twentieth century, shaking...More »
"Okinawa Prismed 1872-2008" Exhibition
[24][5]- Media: Painting - Photography - Ceramics
- 2008-10-31 - 2008-12-21
The abundant nature, rich cultural traditions, painful history and problematic political conditions of Okinawa have all served as motivations for the creative activities of artists of diverse origins....More »
Makoto Komatsu "Design + Humour"
[13][3]- Media: Product - Art Talk
- 2008-10-28 - 2008-12-21
Thrust into the limelight in 1975 thanks to his Crinkle series - pieces in the shape of vessels such as cups and paper bags with paper and cloth wrinkles - Makoto Komatsu (b. 1943) is now a leading product...More »
"A Perspective on Contemporary Art 6: Emotional Drawing" Exhibition
[95][21]- Media: Drawing - Installation - Digital - Art Talk
- 2008-08-26 - 2008-10-13
This show presents works in which artists' emotions seem to have been teased out by embracing the fragile quality intrinsic to drawing. Featured are sixteen artists from Asia, Europe and the Middle East...More »
"Between the Wall and the Ground" Exhibition
[17][4]- Media: Painting - Drawing - Art Talk
- 2008-08-09 - 2008-10-13
The wall rising upright in front of us and the horizontal expanse of the ground under our feet are the two "planes" that comprise the foundation of our perception of the world. How have these "planes"...More »
"Carlo Zauli: A Retrospective" Exhibition
[11][0]- Media: Sculpture
- 2008-06-17 - 2008-08-03
Known internationally as a great innovator of modern ceramics, Carlo Zauli (1926-2002) was an Italian master ceramic artist who had considerable influence also on Japanese counterparts. This is the first...More »
"Architectural Creation Peter Märkli and Jun Aoki" Exhibition
[73][16]- Media: Drawing - Architecture
- 2008-06-03 - 2008-08-03
The two architects, Peter Märkli (b. 1953) from Switzerland and Jun Aoki (b. 1956) from Japan, share a strong interest in paintings and sculpture. This exhibition presents many of more than 300 drawings...More »
"Kaii Higashiyama: A Retrospective" Exhibition
[22][8]- Media: Painting
- 2008-03-29 - 2008-05-18
This is a retrospective exhibition on landscape artist Kaii Higashiyama, born in 1908. He established a unique style characterized by planarity and simplicity as can be seen in his representative work...More »
"Self / Other" Exhibition
[148][30]- Media: Painting - Photography - Prints - Sculpture - Video installation - Art Talk
- 2008-01-18 - 2008-03-09
Today, in the chaos of diversity, how can we pay attention to "the other," the one different from oneself, and accept its values? To begin with, do we "understand" ourselves? This exhibition presents contemporary...More »
"Yasuo Kuniyoshi: Centering on Donated Works" Exhibition
[7][2]- Media: Painting
- 2008-01-02 - 2008-03-20
Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889-1953) was a painter who developed his career in the U.S. during the tumultuous period from the early 20th century to the postwar years. This small show presents more than twenty pieces,...More »
"Modern Age in Japanese Sculpture: From its Beginnings through the 1960s" Exhibition
[6][2]- Media: Sculpture - Art Talk
- 2007-11-13 - 2007-12-24
Various sculptural expressions can be found in traditional Japanese culture. Aside from Buddhist statues, statues of deities, architectural decorations, and other crafted objects, "sculpture" from a Western...More »
"Skies and Stars: Celestial Images" Exhibition
[19][1]- Media: Painting - Photography - Sculpture
- 2007-10-27 - 2007-12-24
Almost everyone has wondered about another planet while staring at stars in the sky, or gazed at cloud formations and seen the shapes of particular things. In ancient times, human beings always found inspiration...More »
Ikuo Hirayama "A Retrospective - Pilgrimage for Peace"
[9][0]- Media: Painting
- 2007-09-04 - 2007-10-21
Ikuo Hirayama is a highly acclaimed artist that is particularly well known for his intellectual and lyrical works based on folklore and anecdotes, such as the painting "Transmission of Buddhism". He has...More »
"The Sense of Collapse" Exhibition
[105][13]- Media: Painting - Photography - Prints
- 2007-08-18 - 2007-10-21
Abandoned ruins, catastrophic scenes from wars and disasters, the decay of things over time, as well as the disintegration of personal identity -- a sense of collapse is frequently depicted in the art...More »
Henri Cartier-Bresson "Retrospective"
[168][48]- Media: Painting - Drawing - Photography
- 2007-06-19 - 2007-08-12
The photographer who never missed a decisive moment, Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) studied painting before starting to focus on photography in the early 1930s. Recognized as the master of taking candid...More »
Henri Michaux "Emerging Figures"
[50][11]- Media: Painting
- 2007-06-19 - 2007-08-12
Henri Michaux is a Belgian painter as well as a poet who worked in France. For about a half century since the 1930s he created peculiar drawings with his signature abstract marks that are neither symbols...More »
"Ai-Mitsu" Exhibition
[20][11]- Media: Painting
- 2007-03-30 - 2007-05-27
Celebrating the 100th anniversary since he was born, this is a retrospective exhibition devoted to an exceptional painter from the World War II period, Ai-Mitsu, who had a huge influence on the history...More »
"Fiction for the Real" Exhibition
[172][29]- Media: Painting - Photography - Prints - Digital
- 2007-03-10 - 2007-05-27
It is often said that art forms became diversified in the 1990s more than ever before. The scene was rather chaotic, reflecting upon the remarkable development in information technology as well as the...More »
Tsuji Kako Exhibition
[5][0]- Media: Painting - Art Talk
- 2007-01-19 - 2007-03-04
Kako Tsuji (1871-1931) is a prominent Japanese artist, known as part of the 'four kings' along with Seiho Takeuchi, Hobun Kikuchi, and Kokyo Taniguchi. He was active in modern Kyoto as both an artist and...More »
Taikan Yokoyama "Metempsychosis"
[14][3]- Media: Painting - Art Talk
- 2007-01-02 - 2007-03-04
As part of the permanent collection exhibition "Masterpiece from the Collection", the entire 40 meters of the Important Cultural Property "Metempsychosis" by Taikan Yokoyama (1868-1958) will be on display...More »
"Modern Art in Wanderings: In Between the Japanese and Western Style Paintings" Exhibition
[18][3]- Media: Painting
- 2006-11-07 - 2006-12-24
Contemporary Japanese paintings are sometimes categorized as being either Nihonga (Japanese paintings) or Western style paintings. This categorization started in the Meiji Era and has been adopted by the...More »
"Photography Today 3: Resolution/Dissolution" Exhibition
[54][9]- Media: Photography - Art Talk
- 2006-10-31 - 2006-12-24
"Resolution/Dissolution" follows "The Absence of Distance" (1998) and "Site/Sight - Place and Scenes" (2002). The boundary surface between two different domains has always been an important theme to...More »
Modern Paradise Exhibition
[45][13]- Media: Painting - Sculpture - Art Talk
- 2006-08-15 - 2006-10-15
This exhibition features more than 100 pieces from the massive art collections of the Ohara Museum and National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo: paintings, sculptures, photographs and more. The works depict...More »
"Body in Pieces" Exhibition
[15][4]- Media: Painting
- 2006-08-05 - 2006-10-15
Jiro Yoshihara: A Centenary Retrospective
[16][6]- Media: Illustration - Art Talk
- 2006-06-13 - 2006-07-30
This is the first large scale retrospective of Jiro Yoshihara (1905-1972) to be held in Tokyo. Osaka-born Yoshihara pioneered avant-garde art for over fifty years and was well known overseas as the leader...More »
"Duration / Rupture"
[26][8]- Media: Painting - Sculpture
- 2006-05-30 - 2006-07-30
The four artists were born around the 1930's and debuted as artists in their 50s. They continue to produce high quality work to this day and personify post-war Japanese art. Work from their early stages...More »
Tsuguharu Foujita Exhibition
[69][31]- Media: Painting
- 2006-03-28 - 2006-05-21
One of the leading painters of the Ecole de Paris, Tsuguharu Foujita (1886-1968) created elegant nude paintings which fascinating "milky-white" skin tones continue to fascinate people even today. In commemoration...More »
Contemporary Prints: Transformation of Photographic Image
[0][0]- Media: Prints
- 2006-03-11 - 2006-05-21
This exhibition features print works that involve the use of photographs. "Prints" used to refer to either wood-block or copper-plate prints, but the usage of photography with print is becoming more popular...More »
Kunitaro Suda Exhibition
[11][2]- Media: Painting
- 2006-01-13 - 2006-03-05
Kunitaro Suda (1891-1961) studied aesthetics and art history at Kyoto University, before exploring the history and techniques of oil painting in Europe. He developed and established a unique style of light...More »
August Sander "Face of Our Time"
[51][26]- Media: Photography
- 2005-10-25 - 2005-12-18
August Sander (1876-1964) was a photographer best known for his numerous portraits of German people in the Weimar period. His major project, aiming at presenting Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts (People of...More »
German Contemporary Photography
[90][33]- Media: Photography
- 2005-10-25 - 2005-12-18
Since the 1990s German photography has been attracting wide attention not only in the domain of photography but in the broader context of contemporary art. Presenting works of photographers such as B....More »
Cubism in Asia: Unbounded Dialogues
[7][7]- Media: Painting
- 2005-08-09 - 2005-10-02
Originated in the early twentieth century by Picasso and other artists, Cubism was one of the most important developments in modern art to have such a global and enduring impact. Presenting about 130 works...More »
Video Installation by Bill Viola and Contemporary Works From the Museum Collection
[8][5]- Media: Video installation
- 2005-07-26 - 2005-10-02
Last year the museum acquired Bill Viola's The Quintet of Remembrance (2000), a silent video installation into which human emotion is condensed. Featuring Viola's installation, this show presents contemporary...More »
Kokei Kobayashi - Master of the Modern Japanese Painting
[3][1]- Media: Painting - Drawing
- 2005-06-07 - 2005-07-18
Kokei Kobayashi (1883-1957) was an artist who, in a period of new art consciousness (Taisho to Showa eras), managed to innovate and push the format of Japanese painting while preserving its traditional...More »
Van Gogh in Context
[7][9]- Media: Painting
- 2005-03-23 - 2005-05-22
Each of the dominant themes in the art of van Gogh (1853-1890), such as religion and labor (the Netherlands), light (Paris), utopia (Arles), and the antinomy between nature and religion (Saint-Rémy-de-Provence),...More »
Misao Yokoyama and Masayoshi Nakamura - A New Phase in Postwar Japanese-style Painting from the Museum Collection
[2][1]- Media: Painting
- 2005-03-05 - 2005-05-22
Both Misao Yokoyama and Masayoshi Nakamura explored new possibilities of postwar Japanese-style painting, ushering in a new phase in the painting circles with their dynamic composition. This exhibition...More »
Traces - Body and Idea in Contemporary Art
[1][5]- Media: Painting - Installation
- 2005-01-12 - 2005-02-27
Incisions on the canvas, spattered paint, hand prints left on picture planes--mainstream images of postwar art often involve the principle of causality, bearing vivid traces of physical activities or raw...More »
Graphic Designs of Takashi Kono
[2][4]- Media: Graphics
- 2005-01-12 - 2005-02-27
Best known by his posters for Shochiku Kinema, a major movie production company, Takashi Kono (1906-1999) was a designer whose career almost entirely overlapped with the history of Japanese graphic design....More »
Yayoi Kusama "Eternity - Modernity"
[1][4]- Media: Painting - Installation
- 2004-10-26 - 2004-12-19
From her early paintings of proliferating nets to soft sculpture and performances after she moved to the United States, Yayoi Kusama (1929- ) has never ceased to explore new possibilities in expression,...More »
Ihei Kimura － The Man with the Camera
[0][3]- Media: Photography
- 2004-10-09 - 2004-12-19
Ihei Kimura (1901-1974), one of the leading photographers of his time, broke new ground in reportage photography using small cameras, an achievement still amazing even today. Using several parts of the...More »
RIMPA
[1][4]- Media: Painting
- 2004-08-21 - 2004-10-03
Typified by Korin Ogata (1658-1716), the Rimpa school created by far the most gorgeous works in modern Japanese art. Comprising selected Rimpa masterpieces as well as those of Shunso Hishida (1874-1911),...More »
