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With the doom, gloom and dampness of rainy season fast approaching, June is the ideal month to explore Tokyo’s many great (and reliably air-conditioned) art museums and galleries. There’s a packed slate of big-name exhibitions going on in the city right now, from Ron Mueck’s showcase of disturbingly lifelike sculptures and giant skulls at the Mori Museum to a love letter to a certain 50-year-old caterpillar, but also an exciting array of smaller blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shows worth seeking out.
Here are our five top picks for the month: an eclectic mix bringing together cutting-edge motion graphics, high fashion, photography as craft and creepy creatures from Japanese folklore.
Yokai Immersive Experience Exhibition
Warehouse Terrada, showing until June 28
Enter the imaginative realm of Japanese mythology at Warehouse Terrada’s digital art exhibit, where humorous demons, spirits and supernatural monsters from ancient folklore are brought to life using cutting-edge 3D graphics and projection mapping technology. Realistically recreated oni ogres, tengu goblins and duck-like kappa river sprites seemingly appear right in front of you, while another section invites you to admire traditional ukiyo-e prints of yokai by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, one of the greatest masters of the form.
Kota Iguchi: Motion Graphics
Ginza Graphic Gallery, showing until July 4
As co-founder of the creative association CEKAI, Kota Iguchi has developed a practice that moves fluidly between motion graphics, live-action film, spatial installations and large-scale digital environments. From the animated sports pictograms of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to projects for Las Vegas’s Sphere, he demonstrates how graphic language can evolve beyond flat surfaces. For this exhibition, Iguchi has collaborated with artists Rei Ishii, Ryu Mieno and Taku Sasaki/Aki Kanai on three newly commissioned works blending motion, architecture and graphic experimentation. Together, they offer a compelling glimpse into the future of design as a spatial and sensory experience.
(Un)known Hiroko Koshino
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, showing until July 26
Hiroko Koshino has stood at the forefront of Japanese fashion for more than half a century, and has expanded the boundaries of the field through collaborations across art, music and design. This ambitious show at the MOT explores the designer’s vast body of work from a contemporary perspective, zooming in on how Koshino has responded to shifting social conditions and cultural contexts while continually reinventing herself. Garments, artworks and archival materials reveal the breadth of her creative practice, which extends to painting, calligraphy and ceramics.
Picasso, through the Eyes of Paul Smith: Adventure of Playful Spirits
The National Art Center, Tokyo, from June 10
When the boundless imagination of Pablo Picasso meets the vibrant creativity of Sir Paul Smith, fireworks follow. Picasso, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, revolutionised modern art with his radical innovations in form and colour. British designer Smith, noted for his playful approach to tailoring and his masterful sense of colour and pattern, brings his unique sensibility to the table, transforming the NACT’s galleries into a dialogue between art and fashion, and tradition and reinvention.
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Extinction
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, from June 16
Hiroshi Sugimoto is one of Japan’s most internationally acclaimed contemporary artists, whose practice spans photography, architecture and stage production. At the core of his work lies a profound engagement with analogue silver gelatin photography, a medium he has elevated through rigorous conceptual frameworks and extraordinary technical mastery, even as it faces obsolescence in the digital age. This retrospective’s title refers to a deeper meditation on what’s disappearing from contemporary visual culture. As digital images become infinitely mutable, Sugimoto reasserts photography’s original power as a medium of evidence and presence.
Still craving more art? Check out our full picks of the best exhibitions showing in Tokyo right now.
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