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Spring has certainly sprung in Tokyo, with daytime temperatures in the 20s and the cherry blossoms already fluttering to the ground in many parts of the city. Another sure sign of the season is the unveiling of new exhibitions at museums and galleries across the capital, and with this year’s slate of spring shows looking loaded, we’ve put together a list of the 10 most noteworthy displays to check out in April and May.
Whether you’re into traditional Japanese art, high-tech sculpture, multidisciplinary installations or meditations on the meaning of cuteness, there’s sure to be something to pique your interest at Tokyo’s museums this spring.
‘Hokusai: “Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji” from the Iuchi Collection’
The National Museum of Western Art, until June 14
Katsushika Hokusai is all the rage in Tokyo. Last year saw several acclaimed exhibitions dive into the ukiyo-e master’s ginormous oeuvre, and the Edo native’s iconic art has also been the subject of some pretty remarkable reinterpretations lately. Next up in highlighting the printmaking genius is the National Museum of Western Art, whose exhibition marks the first public unveiling of a remarkable group of works placed on deposit at the museum in 2024. The exhibition showcases all 46 prints from Hokusai’s iconic series Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji, alongside two additional impressions of his most beloved masterpieces, Under the Wave off Kanagawa and Clear Day with a Southern Breeze.
‘Judd | Marfa’
Watari-Um Museum of Contemporary Art, until June 7
The Watari-Um’s ‘Judd | Marfa’ traces the radical vision of Donald Judd through the lens of his life and work in Marfa, Texas in the 1970s. Judd transformed former military and industrial buildings in the remote desert town into sites for the permanent installation of his own work and that of artists including Dan Flavin and John Chamberlain. These spaces remain preserved today as Judd intended. The exhibition brings together early paintings from the 1950s, key three-dimensional works from the 1960s to the 1990s, and extensive archival materials (drawings, plans, videos and documents) that illuminate Judd’s conception of Marfa as a total environment for art, architecture and living.
‘Sorayama: Light, Reflection, Transparency –Tokyo–’
Creative Museum Tokyo, until May 31
Noted for his iconic Sexy Robot series and his pioneering fusion of human sensuality and mechanical precision, Hajime Sorayama’s work has influenced generations of creators across art, design and popular culture – from RoboCop to Dior. The Ehime native has left a lasting imprint on science fiction, design and pop culture, and that still-evolving legacy can now be explored in stimulating detail at Creative Museum Tokyo. The most extensive Sorayama retrospective to date, the display traces nearly half a century of its protagonist’s artistic exploration through paintings, sculptures, design drawings and immersive installations.
‘NHK Sunday Museum 50th Anniversary Exhibition’
The University Art Museum, until June 21
Ueno’s University Art Museum plays host to this landmark celebration of one of Japan’s most enduring art-focused TV programmes. Since its debut in 1976, NHK Sunday Museum (Nichiyo Bijutsukan) has aired more than 2,500 episodes, introducing audiences to masterpieces from across eras and cultures while elevating the voices of cast members, thinkers and performers who reflect on the meaning of beauty. The exhibition revisits this half-century history through roughly 120 works presented across five thematic chapters, offering a sweeping meditation on creativity. Visitors will encounter iconic pieces from prehistoric Jomon pottery and Edo-period (1603–1868) screens to Paul Cézanne’s Bathers, Alberto Giacometti’s Yanaihara I, Taro Okamoto’s Encounter and the haunting visions of Tetsuya Ishida.
‘Andrius Arutiunian: Obol’
Maison Hermès Le Forum, until May 31
Armenian-Lithuanian artist and composer Andrius Arutiunian’s practice unfolds at the intersection of sound, ritual and speculative cosmology. His first solo exhibition in Japan imagines a futuristic vision of the underworld, a speculative space where myth, sound and ceremony converge. Drawing on ancient cosmologies, esoteric texts and fragments of ritual, ‘Obol’ is conceived as a ‘club for the dead’, where time becomes viscous and hypnotic, and where the boundaries between past, present and future dissolve.
‘Sebastian Masuda – Kawaiitopia Go to Heaven (Hell)’
Hyper Museum Hanno, until August 30
Prepare your ponchos and panniers: Harajuku J-fashion icon Sebastian Masuda has opened his first large-scale solo exhibition in years. ‘Kawaiitopia’ is packed with psychedelic, candy-coloured installations and immersive rooms made for photo ops. A standout is the artist’s signature work ‘Colorful Rebellion – Seventh Nightmare’, first conceived in New York 12 years ago and now reimagined in Japan for the first time. The installation features a stuffed teddy bear in a bedroom lined with neon-pink and yellow toys and trinkets, reading as a self-portrait shaped by the struggles and impulses that have defined Masuda’s life.
‘Martin Margiela at Kudan House’
Kudan House, April 11–29
With his eponymous maison, Martin Margiela redefined fashion through deconstruction, anonymity and radical reinterpretation of form. After leaving the industry in 2008, Margiela has turned fully toward visual art, where he continues to explore themes of the human body, absence, time, transformation, and the poetry of the overlooked. His first major solo exhibition in Japan, set within a registered cultural property completed in 1927, unfolds as a series of ephemeral installations staged throughout the historic residence. Conceived and curated entirely by the artist, the exhibition reflects Margiela’s enduring desire not to provide answers, but to pose questions, with disarming intimacy.
‘Kyosai’s World: The Israel Goldman Collection’
Suntory Museum of Art, April 22–June 21
A mercurial figure in Japan’s 19th-century art scene, Kawanabe Kyosai lived through the political and cultural upheaval of the Meiji Restoration, developing a singular old-meets-new style infused with satirical flair. ‘Kyosai’s World: The Israel Goldman Collection’ offers an excellent opportunity to encounter this restless creativity through approximately 110 works drawn from a collection widely regarded as the world’s richest and most comprehensive assemblage of Kyosai’s works. Keep an eye out for his humorous and often subversive responses to ‘modernity’, in which anthropomorphic figures and playful distortions mask sharp social commentary.
‘Asuka Irie Exhibition 2026 – Moonlight and Slumber’
Nihombashi Takashimaya S.C., April 22–May 6
Tokyo-born artist Asuka Irie has emerged as one of Japan’s most compelling contemporary printmakers, celebrated for her distinctive technique of collaging copperplate etchings into richly layered, dreamlike compositions. The approximately 60 works displayed at this exhibition span early abstractions, intricate mixed-media compositions and new lithographs, including androgynous warrior figures inspired by the Four Heavenly Kings of Buddhism, Paris-themed works shaped by the artist’s years in France, and fantastical animals that oscillate between charm and menace. The exhibition also explores Irie’s fascination with Japanese tradition, from festivals to esoteric cosmology, revealing how she fuses classical motifs with contemporary sensibilities.
‘Ron Mueck’
Mori Art Museum, April 29–September 23
Ron Mueck has long been celebrated for redefining figurative sculpture through extraordinary craftsmanship and emotional acuity. His meticulously crafted human figures, rendered at startlingly altered scales, probe themes of vulnerability, solitude, resilience and the fragile complexity of existence. Each sculpture distills months or even years of observation and reflection, resulting in pieces that feel at once hyper-real and quietly enigmatic. The Mori Art Museum’s exhibition brings together eleven works tracing Mueck’s evolution, including the monumental Mass, an immersive installation of 100 giant skulls reconfigured to reflect the museum’s architecture.
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