Hosted in collaboration with Art Basel, this four-day art festival connects over 50 of Tokyo's leading museums and galleries through coordinated art events and programmes.
During the festival, you can download an app that will get you discounted exhibition passes and free rides on the AWT Bus to hop between events and exhibitions. The buses will take six different routes around the city, with an interval of 15 minutes.
Participating venues include the Artizon Museum, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum and The National Art Center, all of which are offering special admission rates for the duration of the festival.
Both Japanese and international artists will be featured. Notable names include South Korean artist Ha Chong-Hyun, who is presenting his ongoing 'Conjunction' series, which he began in 1974, at the Blum gallery.
Another highlight is Jae-eun Choi’s Ecology: Dialogue on Circulations exhibition at the Maison Hermès Le Forum. Choi's quietly poetic conceptual art calls attention to the climate catastrophe and uses materials like dead coral for her installation. Over at the Nanzuka Gallery, you’ll find a more playful exhibition by French artists Nicholas and Jean Jullien, who are presenting a fantastical series of sculptures and paintings inspired by the card game Magic: The Gathering.
For something you can indulge in, check out the AWT pop-up bar at Omotesando’s Emergence complex, which will be serving cocktails designed by artists Saori Miyake, Shinji Ohmaki and Masato Kobayashi, alongside canapés by chef Shinsuke Ishii of the one-Michelin-starred restaurant Sincere.
Enjoy Kobayashi's Lemon Cocktail on this Planet, a fusion of gin, fresh Setouchi lemon juice, and simple syrup inspired by the artist's fascination with the solar system. Miyake's Nowhere in Blue blends absinthe, butterfly pea flower tea and club soda, capturing the tranquillity of their nature walks during the pandemic. And Ohmaki's Vacuum Fluctuation mixes vodka, Aphrodite Black liqueur, grapefruit juice and gelee, embodying the cosmic dance of light and darkness.
This year's event will also feature the inaugural edition of AWT Focus, an art sale curated by Kenjiro Hosaka with works by 64 artists. The showcase will be held at the Okura Museum of Art and feature Japanese artworks from the post-war period to the present day.
Admission fees vary according to each venue, but you can get a discount for certain museum tickets with the free AWT app. Note that many of the participating museums and galleries are monitoring visitor capacity for health and safety reasons. It’s recommended that you reserve a time slot for your visit online in advance.