Artizon Museum

The Artizon Museum invites art aficionados to immerse themselves in a vibrant space of dialogue and imagination with ‘Katarium’, an exhibition that explores art as a site of narration. The title combines the Japanese word katari (‘tell’ or ‘narrate’) with the suffix -arium, evoking a realm where stories unfold. The exhibition seeks to reflect on the myriad conversations that surround artworks, from the artist’s private musings in the studio to the audience’s impressions before a finished piece. Through approximately 60 works spanning diverse eras and media, including two National Treasures, seven Important Cultural Properties and five Important Art Objects, ‘Katarium’ invites viewers to listen to these silent dialogues across time. Highlights include Edo-period (1603–1868) folding screens thought to have been created for samurai lords, mythological paintings from the Meiji (1868–1912) and Taisho (1912–1926) eras, and poetic lithographs by the American social realist artist Ben Shahn. Additionally, traditional scrolls such as Zen Proverb Scroll Fragment and Scrolls of Frolicking Animals and Humans are reassembled from fragments, allowing visitors to witness ‘reunions’ of masterpieces long separated. From the newly restored Illustrated Tale of the Heiji Rebellion: The Tokiwamaki Scroll to the mysterious Edo Tenka Festival Screens, ‘Katarium’ offers an evocative journey through Japan’s artistic storytelling, where each work whispers, greets and remembers across the centuries.

A visionary who worked along the boundaries between art, design and everyday life, Ettore Sottsass (1917–2007) was one of the most influential figures in 20th-century Italian design. Rising to prominence in the 1950s through his groundbreaking work for the typewriter and computer manufacturer Olivetti, Sottsass redefined industrial design by infusing functional objects with emotion, symbolism and wit. His restless creative spirit culminated in the 1981 founding of the Memphis Group, an international collective whose bold colours, playful forms and radical aesthetics came to define post-modern design and reshape global visual culture. ‘Design begins where magic begins’ at the Artizon Museum is the first comprehensive retrospective of Sottsass’s work in Japan. Drawing from the Ishibashi Foundation’s extensive collection, the exhibition brings together 112 works spanning the entirety of its subject’s long and prolific career, from early experiments to later, more philosophical creations. Through furniture, industrial design and conceptual works, the exhibition traces Sottsass’s lifelong challenge to strict rationalism and his belief that design should reflect the emotional and spiritual dimensions of human life. Humour, colour and sensuality emerge as tools with which he sought to illuminate the lived experiences, desires and contradictions of modern society. Offering a rare opportunity to encounter Sottsass’s work in depth, the exhibition reveals a visionary who insisted...