Art Osaka 2025 – where past grandeur meets cutting-edge contemporary art

This year’s fair was structured around two sections: Galleries and Expanded. The former, housed in the majestic Osaka City Central Public Hall, brought together 44 galleries from Japan and abroad. Within this architectural landmark, ornate chandeliers and vaulted ceilings provided a dramatic counterpoint to cutting-edge works by emerging and mid-career artists.

Meanwhile, the Expanded section transformed Creative Center Osaka, a former shipyard in Kitakagaya, into a playground for large-scale installations, video art and performances, animating the venue’s industrial past with speculative forms of the future.

This bifurcated structure reflected Art Osaka’s ongoing mission to showcase contemporary art as a force for cultural dialogue and urban revitalisation. To facilitate the experience, a free shuttle bus connected the two venues, encouraging visitors to oscillate between the classical and the experimental.

While the Galleries section retained the traditional booth-style fair format, its location in Osaka’s most iconic pre-war modernist building lent a certain grandeur to the experience. Among the standout participants were newcomers like Aisho (Tokyo/Hong Kong), Eukaryote (Tokyo) and Cohju Contemporary Art (Kyoto), each pushing the boundaries of contemporary expression.

Aisho spotlighted Kazuma Koike, whose ‘fictional ancient artifacts’ reflect an intricate syncretism of Shinto and Chinese Buddhist iconography – a visual archaeology of hybrid cultural memory. Eukaryote offered a fresh take on painterly inquiry, with artists like Ryo Kikuchi and Haruna Shinagawa exploring visual perception through immersive textures and layered erasure. Cohju, meanwhile, emphasised young Kansai-based talents such as Kousai Shiraishi and Fu Nagasawa, whose work fuses personal narrative with traditional craft and folklore, reflecting a distinctively Japanese worldview.

Down in Kitakagaya, the Expanded section took full advantage of the cavernous former shipyard, accommodating works that defy the constraints of conventional gallery settings. Nineteen artists or collectives presented site-specific works that spanned sculpture, sound, video and performance, united by the theme of ‘expansion’.

A clear highlight was Fly by Yoko Ono, exhibited by Tomio Koyama Gallery. Suspended 3.6 metres up in the air, this poetic work composed of three ladders and postcard instructions invited audiences to contemplate both physical and metaphorical ascent. Visitors were encouraged to take home messages from the artist, turning passive spectators into participants in line with Ono’s enduring philosophy of peace and imagination.

Equally captivating was Masayuki Kawai’s Three Elements, a performance-installation blending analogue video feedback with live sound to evoke a psychedelic interplay between technology and the human psyche. Its atmosphere was immersive, mesmerising – and audibly alive.

Elsewhere, Wataru Ito presented a sprawling paper-based installation that spread across a 1,200-square-metre space like an organic growth of cells. Yu Sora stitched poignant memories into soft white fabric, reflecting on the fragility of daily life amid the spectre of disaster. Yuta Shimoda and Sawako Nasu collaborated on spatial installations that explored the interface of engineering and painting, while Jo Takahashi constructed towering apparatuses that evoked the invisible forces shaping our reality.

For the first time in its history, Art Osaka included a dedicated screenings programme inside the historic main hall of the Central Public Hall. Curated by Gen Umezu, this four-part film series traced the arc of Japanese moving image practices from the 1960s to today. On show were rare interviews with pioneering video artists, experimental works that once defined the avant-garde, and contemporary pieces that challenge the form itself.

One highlight was a special screening of Techno Therapy, a documentary revisiting the seminal 1998 art project led by Yasumasa Morimura. Originally staged in the same hall before its renovation, Techno Therapy transformed the venue into a living, breathing organism of sound, light and movement. The screening was followed by a talk by Morimura himself, underscoring the ways in which Art Osaka consciously builds upon its own cultural memory while charting new paths forward.

In addition to encouraging and providing a space for critical discourse, Art Osaka is committed to cultivating a healthy and sustainable art market. Run by a collective of galleries since its founding in 2002, the fair places a particular emphasis on fostering connections between artists, collectors and the general public. Thanks to its inclusive atmosphere and curatorial rigor, it remains a treasured entry point for new buyers and seasoned collectors alike.

Art Osaka’s 2025 edition demonstrated that the fair is more than an art event; it’s a dialogue across generations, geographies and genres. Whether in the historic opulence of Nakanoshima or the wild vastness of Kitakagaya, the fair illustrated how art can both honour the past and imagine new futures.