Best Exhibitions Starting in January 2023

Tokyo Art Beat presents a selection of the best exhibitions opening in January 2023. If you bookmark the exhibitions on the Tokyo Art Beat app, you will never miss the openings and closings! 

Celebrating Spring - The Coming of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune and the Rabbits

Seikado Bunko Art Museum relocated to the first floor of the Meiji Seimei Kan in Marunouchi in October 2022. This special exhibition celebrating the new year will feature 58 Gosho dolls, including seven gods of good fortune and rabbits. Dolls were made to commemorate the 60th birthday of Koyata Iwasaki, the fourth president of Mitsubishi, who was born in the year of the rabbit. The exhibition also features a selection of paintings and crafts.

Venue: Seikado Bunko Art Museum (Marunouchi)
Schedule: January 2 - February 4 
Exhibition details

Egon Schiele from the Collection of the Leopold Museum – Young Genius in Vienna 1900

Egon Schiele (1890-1918) was one of the outstanding painters of late 19th-century Vienna, a time of significant historical and cultural change. He passed away at the early age of 28 but produced numerous works and forged his distinctive style. This is the first major retrospective of Schiele’s work in Japan in 30 years and is held with the full cooperation of the Leopold Museum in Vienna. Approximately 50 oil paintings, drawings, and other works by Schiele will be on display, along with works by Klimt, Kokoschka, Gerstl, and other artists of the same era.

Venue: Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (Ueno Park)
Schedule: January 26 - April 9 
Exhibition details

Yuzo Saeki “Emerging from the Urban Landscape”

Yuzo Saeki (1898-1928) spent his life in Osaka, Tokyo, and Paris. This exhibition commemorates the 125th anniversary of Saeki’s birth and brings together representative works of the artist, focusing on the collection of the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka. Following Saeki’s steps in the three cities, the exhibition explores the origins of his creativity and originality. In April, the exhibition will travel to the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka.

Venue: Tokyo Station Gallery (Marunouchi)
Schedule: January 21 - April 2
Exhibition details

Sit, Down. Sit Down Please, Sphinx. : Izumi Taro

Taro Izumi is known for his installations that intersect various media, including video, performance, drawing, painting, and sculpture. Active in Japan and worldwide, Izumi held his first overseas large-scale solo exhibition at Palais de Tokyo (Paris) in 2017 and at Museum Tinguely (Basel) in 2020. This exhibition will be Izumi’s first solo show at a museum in Tokyo. The works on display combine different motifs and words, such as ancient tombs, mausoleums, strikes, instincts, illness, and falconry.

Venue: Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (Nishi-Shinjuku)
Schedule: January 18 - March 26
Exhibition details

Hosokawa’s Famous Swords: National Treasures of Eisei Bunko

Eisei-Bunko, a museum built on the property of the feudal lord’s family, presents an exhibition featuring four National Treasure swords and other masterpieces collected by the museum’s founder, Moritatsu Hosokawa. Various events, such as stamp rallies and a special collaboration between Bunkyo-ku and “Touken Ranbu Online,” will also be held during the exhibition period.

Venue: Eisei-Bunko Museum (Mejirodai)
Schedule: January 14 - May 7
Exhibition details

Celebrating the 100th Birthday of Samiro Yunoki

Dyer Samiro Yunoki was born in 1922. Celebrating his 100th birthday, this exhibition introduces Yunoki’s early to recent works and craft works from various ages, different production areas, and techniques. Don’t miss the opportunity to see exhibitions featuring Kyushu and Okinawa ceramics and leather crafts at the same venue.

Venue: Japan Folk-Craft Museum (Komaba)
Schedule: January 13 - April 2
Exhibition details

Goda Sawako: A Retrospective

Since her solo exhibition debut in 1965, Goda Sawako’s creative activities have traversed various media, including sculpture, painting, and photography. Since 1969 she has worked on stage design and original poster art for plays by Juro Kara and Shuji Terayama. This exhibition is the first retrospective of the artist’s work since her death, and the largest ever held, featuring over 300 pieces and materials on display. The exhibition is a rare opportunity to learn about the life of an artist who never stopped changing her style and evolving. The exhibition is also on view at the Museum of Art, Kochi, until January 15, 2023.

Venue: Mitaka City Gallery of Art (Mitaka)
Schedule: January 28 - March 26
Exhibition details

Daisuke Tsutsumi "Oni Exhibition"

Play! museum is presenting an exhibition of animation artist Daisuke Tsutsumi. Previously working with Pixar, he founded Tonko House animation studio with Robert Kondo in Berkeley, California, in 2014. This exhibition is a new entertainment experience in which visitors can explore the world of Tsutsumi’s first animated Netflix original film, “Oni: Thunder God’s Tale.” Enjoy an immersive experience that blends images, words, sound, and light with folklore materials.

Venue: Play! (Tachikawa)
Schedule: January 21 - April 2
Exhibition details

Interior Visions: From Bonnard to Tillmans and Contemporary Artists

Our lifestyles have changed dramatically since the pandemic, and we spend most of our time in a space called a “room.” While a room may bring security, it may also create a sense of entrapment. This exhibition features artists from the 19th century to the present day whose work is characterized by room-related expressions and reexamines intimate memories and dreams. Works of Pierre Bonnard, Berthe Morisot, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Édouard Vuillard, Henri Matisse, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Yayoi Kusama are on display. In addition, viewers can enjoy works of Akiko and Masako Takada and Midori Sato + Yuichiro Moriyama, which explore life after the pandemic.

Venue: Pola Museum of Art (Hakone)
Schedule: January 28 - July 2
Exhibition details

Japanese Paintings of Modern Osaka

Celebrating the first anniversary of the Nakanoshima Art Museum, Osaka, this is the first exhibition to focus on modern Osaka Japanese-style painting from the Meiji to Showa periods. Approximately 150 works by more than 50 painters, including Tsunetomi Kitano, Seien Shima, Tatehiko Suga, and Kyoson Yano, are on display. Osaka has developed a unique and outstanding artistic culture distinct from Tokyo and Kyoto. And with the support of residents, the art of modern Osaka has blossomed into a diverse form of free and vigorous expression that is not bound by tradition. The exhibition allows visitors to explore art and Osaka’s urban culture at the same time.

Venue: Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka (Osaka)
Schedule: January 21 - April 2
Exhibition details

Modern Finnish Ryijy Textiles from the Tuomas Sopanen Collection

Ryijy is a Finnish textile used in bedding as early as the 16th century. It attracted attention at the 1900 Paris Exposition, and in the 1950s, it garnered international acclaim in conjunction with Finnish design. For the first time in Japan, this exhibition introduces ryijy from the collection of Tuomas Sopanen. Approximately 40 pieces produced after the 1950s have been carefully selected to give visitors an overview of ryijy’s history.

Venue: The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (Kyoto)
Schedule: January 28 - April 16
Exhibition details

Beautyー Baikoan Collection x Yasunari Ikenaga

Beauty is an eternal theme in art, painted by artists worldwide from ancient times to the present. This exhibition features approximately 60 works from the golden age of Bijinga paintings by famous painters such as Shoen Uematsu, Kiyokata Kaburaki, Tsunetomi Kitano, and others. Contemporary Bijinga paintings by Yasunari Ikenaga are also on display. 

Venue: Oita Art Museum (Oita)
Schedule: January 7 - April 16
Exhibition details