Over 300 cell animation illustrations and other works from Tatsunoko Production showcasing the breadth of the studio's output. Also on display will be selected video works, manuscripts, drafts and sketches. In addition, screenings and talks (with Hiroshi Sasakawa) are scheduled. See website for more details. [Image: "Time Bokan Series Yatta-man" (c) Tatsunoko Pro]

Commemorating the 10th anniversary of the museum, this exhibition sheds light on Taro Okamoto's "Tower of the Sun," a monument created for the Japan World Exposition held in 1970. The work symbolizes "the progress and harmony of human beings." Okamoto wanted to build something extremely "absurd" that stood out in the expo crowded with modernist pavilions. This idea of a "festival" transcending any nationality, race, or language barriers was prominent in the monument. The tower contains "Tree of Life" which illustrates the growth of humanity. Also, the internal space is divided into parts, each of which represent the past, present, and future, unfolding the dynamism of life, which has always existed around us. The monument is an ultimate compilation of Okamoto's philosophy and theory of art. This exhibition introduces everything about the "Tower of the Sun" through video documentation, along with Okamoto's sketches and writings. Please see the museum website for more details.

The special exhibition for 2008 involves a compact selection of work from the world's largest art museum, the Louvre, which will be displayed at the Ghibli Museum under the theme "Little Louvre Museum". The Louvre is situated on the banks of the Seine river in Paris, and boasts over 800 years of history as one of the world's oldest museums, attracting over 7 million visitors annually. With its collection of more than 35,000 pieces, a tour of the Louvre offers a comprehensive survey to Western art. Producing animation work involves transforming the world contained within the work and its characters into a drawing or painting, which often takes as its initial inspiration the works of past painters. In addition to the actual creative process, therefore, a wide knowledge of "painting" is often indispensable background knowledge for creators. It also sharpens and enhances the sensibilities of the viewer when faced with a work of art. Unfortunately, the opportunities for encountering such paintings and sculptures are fairly rare in Japan. Museums are commonly the preserve of adults who take in works of art silently and reverently, and hardly a place for kids to be able to visit casually. With this in mind, this exhibition was organized in order to provide a space where anyone can get a sense for the history of the Louvre buildings, and especially where kids can encounter "high" art in a relaxed setting. The paintings introduced at this exhibition have had their dimensions shrunk to about 40%, to fit the size and stature of children. An overview of work displayed on one wall enables viewers to appreciate the changes in French painterly expression from the 16th century Renaissance style right through to the naturalism of the early 19th century. The Louvre was initially constructed as a fortress at the end of the 12th century and later turned first into a palace, and later a museum. Excavated remains of the fortress are even now available for viewing in the Louvre's basement exhibition rooms, but it is well to remember that the history of this edifice is hardly a glorious one - the Louvre having been destroyed and abandoned several times over the years. This exhibition introduces such a "light and darkness" of the Louvre's history with a sculptural piece. The Ghibli, on the other hand, was a space that was designed to include children, to have them look, discover, and feel their way around art. This "Little Louvre Museum" exhibition hopes to be able to bring something amazing or incredible for kids to take home with them.

Ryusei Kishida (1891-1929) is well-known for this "Portrait of Reiko", in which he used his own beloved daughter as model. He was one of the most outstanding and unique painters in the Japanese "yoga" style during the Taisho and early Showa periods. Although he passed away at the young age of 38, Kishida produced an oeuvre of disproportionate impact, with many works that brought about fruitful change for the genre. Kishida entered the Hakuba-kai for yoga painting at 17 and studied oil painting with Kiyoteru Kuroda, while simultaneously becoming influenced by the work of the late Impressionists, such as van Gogh and Cezanne, through the pages of the art and culture magazine Shirakaba. Later, Kishida fell for the photographic realism of northern European Renaissance painters like Durer, and began pursuing his own studies of painterly realism, seeking to evoke the "inner beauty" of things and people. From the latter half of the Taisho period onwards, Kishida did a volte-face and turned towards eastern art, in particular Chinese painting of the Song and Yuan dynasties, as well as early ukiyo-e woodblock prints. This eastern aesthetic attracted him and began to be reflected in his own work. In addition to works from the collection of the Kasama Nichido Museum of Art, this exhibition showcases self-portraits and other oil paintings, nihonga, watercolors, rough sketches and book binding illustrations - a total of about 70 works. Please visit the exhibition website for more details. [Image: "Portrait of Girl (Standing Image of Reiko)" (1923) oil on canvas, 53.2 x 45.5 cm. From the collection of the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Modern Art]

Throughout his career, Marc Chagall not only depicted fantastical imagery in rich colors, but also gave expression to his childhood memories with a sense of rustic poetry. Chagall never ceased to project a part of his intimate memories, life and love onto his canvases, regaling viewers with stories that were uniquely his own. In this exhibition, the entire Chagall collection of the Pola museum will be on display.

In 1990, the Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art opened in a dense, green forest. The museum reopened in March 2008 after completing a two-year renovation and construction process that was initiated at the end of 2006. This summer, the museum will present work carefully selected from its permanent collection throughout the entire building in exhibition spaces that are now 1.5 times larger in floor area. The roughly 120 artworks exhibited in the transformed galleries include the museum's featured and popular portrait of Rembrandt, Impressionist masterworks, Modern Japanese paintings, Surrealist paintings, and postwar large-format paintings from the United States by artists such as Frank Stella. Especially significant to this exhibition are important 20th century American masterpieces, “Anna's Light” and “Seagram Murals” by artists Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko respectively, which are exhibited separately in two new rooms. These galleries were carefully designed in accordance with the artists' original intentions with regards to size, viewing distance, illumination and building materials. While viewing the exhibit “Anna's Light” in the Newman Room, one can see nature outside through glass windows with a gauze screen. The expansiveness of the large red surface and the expansiveness of nature respond to each other in affirmation of our museum's commitment to artwork in how in relates also to architecture and the natural environment. In addition, “Room 203,” a bright square room with a 6-meter high ceiling, was designed as a special exhibition space that allows for the possible exhibition of large-scale artworks. For this occasion, the museum will exhibit Pop Art by artists such as Warhol and Lichtenstein, as well as postwar European masterpieces. Much of the building was designed to bring natural light and greenery into view. Artworks appear to exist quietly and freely in this unconstrained building. They connect with the woods outside, where the trees seem to breathe life. [Image: Roy Lichtenstein "Wallpaper with Blue Floor Interior" (1992) ©Estate of Roy Lichtenstein, New York & SPDA, Tokyo, 2008]

The 19th century French painter Camille Corot (1796-1875) created numerous lyric landscape and figural paintings, and today his oeuvre continues to fascinate artists and art aficionados throughout the world. In spite of Corot’s fame and achievement, there have been a surprisingly few major exhibitions focusing on Corot in Japan or overseas. This exhibition centers on the important group of major works by Corot in the Musee du Louvre as it reexamines the fascination and secrets of Corot’s arts. Works on display range from Corot's earliest creations to his late period, encompassing early Romantic style landscape paintings, study works created in Italy, realist works, and his late period works with their uniquely hazy, poetic expression that developed into images of memories and dream-like visions. This major gathering of Corot's works also features the finely detailed figural paintings he created at different times during his life. In addition to works by Corot, this exhibition marks the first experiment worldwide in presenting a group of works by artists who were deeply influenced by Corot, ranging in style and date from the Impressionists through the Cubists. By no means did Corot himself emphasize the revolutionary nature of his own arts which had such a massive impact on art history. It is our great hope that this exhibition, with its superb selection of more than 110 paintings and prints by Corot, Renoir, Sisley, Braque and others, will allow visitors to fully experience the resonant modernist sensibility that underscores Corot’s works.

An artist talk will be held Tuesday, September 2nd, 17:30-18:30