Things to do in Tokyo this week

With its illuminated ornate floats, the Aomori Nebuta Matsuri (and its various regional siblings) is one of Japan's most instantly recognisable festivals. Less well-known is this Tokyo spin-off, held every two years in a sleepy neighbourhood just a few stops from Shinagawa.

The Nakanobu Nebuta Matsuri is actually twinned with the festival held in Kuroishi, Aomori Prefecture, and this year it will be hosting six of those eye-catching floats. There will be stalls selling traditional food and drinks from noon to 4pm, accompanied by awa-odori dancing and taiko drumming, as well as local school brass band and belly-dancing performances. The highlight, which is the float parade, starts at 5pm.

Shibuya’s biggest festival is happening this September at Konno Hachimangu Shrine and surrounding neighbourhoods. 

The Shibuya Matsuri, which has been celebrated annually for several hundred years, is a Shinto tradition praying for good harvest, prosperity and the health of the shrine parishioners. This year, expect to see a variety of cultural performances at the shrine’s Kaguraden dance hall from 11am on Saturday, such as Indian Odissi dance by the Surya dance troupe, a taiko drumming performance, Japanese folk dance and French Chanson singing, just to name a few.

Complementing this diverse programme are events for children, including yo-yo fishing, local mascot gatherings and a shateki shooting game to win prizes. The shrine will also host a space for food trucks selling the usual Shibuya snacks such as kebab, cotton candy and fried takoyaki. For a complete schedule of events happening within the shrine precincts, check the official event website.

The main highlight of the festival, however, is the gigantic mikoshi parade happening all day on Sunday starting at noon. This procession of 14 portable shrines from various neighbourhoods in Shibuya will kick off in Aoyama and slowly make its way through Shibuya Scramble Crossing before arriving at the square in front of Shibuya 109 at roughly 2pm.

The convergence of many mikoshi in such a tight space is surely challenging, especially as pious groups become competitive and start jostling to carry the portable shrines through the crowds.

Tokyo’s evenings are getting darker and colder fast this year. Embrace the early onset of autumn at our Nordic Night, the first in a monthly series of internationally themed parties run by Time Out Tokyo at Ark Hills Gallery in Roppongi Itchome. This inaugural bash is headlined by the dynamic duo of Swedish drag queen Nattmara (‘nightmare’) and DJ Mai Nakamura, a seasoned connoisseur of Finnish and Estonian music from jazz to hip-hop.

The ticket price includes a welcome shot of Finnish Koskenkorva Salmiakki licorice vodka to get you fired up for the evening. Cardamom buns and a selection of sandwiches courtesy of Kokubunji-based Swedish café Backen, along with other drinks, will be available for purchase.

Between the shows and DJ sets, you’ll have ample opportunities to quiz the queen on all things drag, Nordic or Tokyo in English or Japanese. Finland-born deputy editor-in-chief Ili Saarinen and the rest of the Time Out Tokyo editorial team will be there too, so come on down on Friday and get ready for a one-night-only cultural crossover.

Tickets are available now through our Time Out Tokyo Shop.

Timetable

5pm: Doors open
6:30–7pm: DJ Mai Nakamura
7–7:15pm: Nattmara drag show
7:30–8pm: Chat with Nattmara
8–9pm: DJ Mai Nakamura

This September, Shimokitazawa welcomes the return of its annual lunar art festival that will coincide with the upcoming autumn moon. Back for its fifth edition, Moon Art Night Shimokita will span several venues in the neighbourhood, including the open plaza in front of the station, Shimokita Senrogai Open Space near Shimokitazawa police box, the rooftop of Higashi-Kitazawa Station, and the Bonus Track complex.

Exhibits include an outdoor moon installation by UK artist Luke Jerram, whose giant floating model features striking details of the moon’s surface as captured by Nasa. This particular installation – titled ‘Museum of the Moon’ – is set to be on show every day at the vacant lot of the Shimokita Senrogai complex. 

The festival is also hosting Tokyo-based contemporary artist Shoei Matsuda, whose giant eight-metre-tall inflatable recreates the iconic 'tears of joy' emoji at the Bonus Track complex. Inspired by the evolution of emoji from a feature of Japanese mobile phone culture into a universal visual language, the interactive installation explores the relationship between the digital and physical worlds. Visitors can also use an AR filter to transform their own faces into the 'tears of joy' emoji and share the results on Instagram, blurring the boundaries between online expression and real-world experience.

Moreover, Japanese sculptor and artist Teppei Kaneuji is participating with an interactive installation titled ‘A Thousand Faces of the Moon’ at the paid Higashi-Kitazawa Station rooftop venue. Inspired by the idea that while there is only one moon, its appearance and meaning can vary depending on where you are and your own perspective, the work invites visitors to throw, roll and photograph a collection of moon-shaped sculptures. Kaneuji will also host a silkscreen printing workshop, where participants can create and take home their own moon-themed artwork.

Aside from the art exhibitions, the festival will feature several immersive theatre performances, live music, video installations and pop-ups. Several shops around Shimokitazawa Station will also offer full moon-inspired food and beverages and limited-edition products during the festival.

Tickets to access paid venues and performances are on sale via the official website.

Meguro River is becoming one with art this September, with a four-kilometre stretch of the river transformed into a giant ‘instrument’ on September 4 to 6 and 18 to 22.

At the heart of the project is Kaze – body, a sound installation by artist Ray Kunimoto. Made up of countless metal plates, the installation sits on a boat that travels along the Meguro River, from Tennozu at the river’s mouth to the area in front of Hotel Gajoen Tokyo. Exploring the relationship between invisible forces such as gravity, wind and water and the physical environment, the work turns the energy of the wind into sound, as the metal plates sway and collide with one another.

Kaze – body will operate from 6pm to 9pm on September 4 to 6 and 18 to 22. Designated viewing points include the promenade along the Meguro River and Gotanda Fureai Waterside Square, where visitors can stroll along the riverbank, wait for the artwork to arrive and listen to its sounds.

At Gotanda Fureai Waterside Square, speakers installed on streetlights will play sounds synchronised with Kaze – body. This allows visitors to experience not just the artwork on the boat, but the entire riverside environment – including the time spent waiting for the boat to pass – as one expansive sound installation. On opening day, September 4, a documentary by Kunimoto and Kaori Yamane about the creation of Kaze – body will also be projected onto the riverbank.

Moreover, on September 12, a one-day-only live music performance will take place at Higashi-Shinagawa Kaijo Park. DJs and food trucks will kick off from 3pm on the park side, followed by live performances from 5pm on a special stage set up on a houseboat. Alongside Kunimoto’s work, the performance line-up includes duo Tatsuro Murakami & Shin Araki, and duo Shöka feat. Kei Matsumaru. Meanwhile, DJ Emerald and Grrrden will be spinning DJ sets.

Check the event website for more details.

Happening for two consecutive days on September 19 and 20, this massive festival featuring over 400 stores returns this autumn at Tokyo Oval Keiokaku velodrome. Lovers of vintage goods and bread, rejoice – this event combines one of Japan’s largest European antique flea markets with the country’s most extensive bread market.

Around 90 bakeries will set up shop in the latter area, including Siro, a bakery run by the former patissier of D’une rarete, a popular canelé shop in Azabu-Juban.

In the antiques area, expect to see more than 100 noted antique shops from all over the country gather to sell European tableware, vintage clothing, furniture, accessories and more. New for 2026, vinyl retail mogul Disk Union is setting up shop with a large selection of vintage band T-shirts alongside its usual array of used and new records. Check the event's Instagram for more details.

Tickets are now on sale via Livepocket. 

Gear up for 11 days of LOL as the Tokyo International Comedy Festival returns with a programme featuring shows by a star-studded cast of comedians, plus international roast battles, stand-up contests, bilingual improv and much more. With shows in both English and Japanese, this comedy extravaganza is for everyone in Tokyo.

The festival takes place across venues including Tokyo Comedy Bar, Mame Romantic, Tokyo American Club and Baird Beer’s taproom in Nakameguro. You can look forward to a diverse line-up of comedians, with a focus on local talents such as Yurie Collins, Shota Saimu, BJ Fox and Pakkun (Patrick Harlan).

Celebrated Japanese sound giant Audio-Technica is bringing back its annual market – a celebration of all things analogue, from records and turntables to handmade crafts and vintage goods. First launched in 2022 to mark the company’s 60th anniversary, the market returns this autumn on a much larger scale, taking over SKAC (Skwat Kameari Art Centre) for a month from September 2 to October 4.

Focused on the act of listening, the event’s main highlights include a listening area inside the VDS record store, which also happens to be the market’s co-organiser. At this listening station, you can try out some of Audio-Technica’s finest products, including high-end wooden headphones, turntables and more.

Meanwhile, at the Skwat Hertz Orchestra Archive, you can listen to and compare seven original recordings made at SKAC. Audio recorded from street pianos placed around the venue, along with ambient sounds – think the rumbling of trains overhead and the occasional sneeze – is mixed together to create original pieces that you can only hear here. This theme of listening (after all, Audio-Technica’s motto is the ominous-sounding ‘Always Listening’) continues in the Listening Room, where you can enjoy music played through omnidirectional speakers.

On the weekends, the creative hub gets a makeover. On September 12 and 13, 24 record stores from across Japan will set up shop in the MM Storage room from 11am to 7pm. On the weekends of September 19-20, 26-27 and October 3-4, meanwhile, expect a flea market featuring artworks, handmade ceramics, vintage treasures, interior design pieces, fragrances, houseplants, wines and more.

Celebrate all things Mexican at this year’s Fiesta Mexicana, held along the West Promenade outside Aqua City in Odaiba. The annual festival, which is now in its 25th year, brings together the best of Mexico’s long-standing traditions and food culture to commemorate the country’s Independence Day.

Expect about 20 booths offering Mexican food, handicrafts and local specialities. There are fun activities, too, like hitting a piñata, which takes place at 3pm on September 20, 21 and 22 beneath the Yurikamome monorail tracks. Live entertainment is also scheduled over the three-day festival, including a masked Lucha Libre Mexican wrestling performance, so get ready to let your hair down and partake in some live music and dancing.

This carnivorous carnival at Hibiya Park features 28 different stalls offering a range of meat dishes and refreshments. Expect the likes of karaage fried chicken, steak skewers, cheesesteak sandwiches, meat-wrapped rice ball skewers, kebab sandwiches and even wagyu roast beef rice bowls.

You can pair your choice of meat with a pint of cool craft beer from Japanese breweries such as Niiza Craft and Fuji Premium Brewing. There will also be snacks like custard pudding and soft-serve ice cream.

Good news for families with children: Niku Matsuri will also feature a full line-up of stage performances, plus a dance contest for primary school-aged children on Saturday at noon. 

The festival takes place from 10am to 6pm for three days, from September 18 to 20.

Entry is free, but you have to pay for each dish you order.

One of Tokyo's three German beer fest spin-offs this autumn (including Shiba Park and Tachikawa), Munich Oktoberfest kicks off on September 18 at Urban Dock LaLaport Toyosu. This beer extravaganza at least manages to fall within a few weeks of the original German beer-fuelled festival it's copying, running from September 18 until October 12.

As with all the other Oktoberfests in town, you can enjoy pints of German beer served in glasses that can fill up to a litre, alongside bratwurst and sauerkraut. There will be oompah bands to sweeten the mood.

Entry is free and you can pay as you go. Do note that the event is mostly cashless; you can pay via credit card, PayPay, IC card, QuicPay, ID and other forms of electronic payment.

Sound, visual art and site-specific elements blend together in innovative and challenging ways at Ambient Kyoto, a multisensory, immersive exhibition that now makes its first foray into Tokyo, landing at Azabudai Hills Gallery. The display centres on the installation ‘async – immersion’, envisioned by the much-missed Ryuichi Sakamoto and Shiro Takatani of Dumb Type and first presented in Kyoto in 2023.

Inspired by Sakamoto’s 2017 album async, ‘async – immersion’ features visuals by Takatani and spatial audio design by sound engineer ZAK, whose fingerprints are all over many of Sakamoto’s late-career projects. At Azabudai Hills, the work has been reconstructed exclusively for the venue, with the setup including a 26-metre-wide screen for displaying the video elements of the installation.

True to the title of the work, the aural and visual components are aligned but not fully synchronised; their constantly shifting relationship rewards attentive viewing and encourages visitors to approach the work on their own terms.

While Tomioka Hachimangu Shrine is worth a visit just for its impressive architecture, the beautiful grounds are also home to a regular antique market that usually takes place on the first, second, fourth and fifth Sunday of every month. However, to make sure the market is on schedule, you can check the website for the exact dates each month.

As this is an antique market, the items here are a bit less junky than some of the other flea markets in town, with plenty of gorgeous Japanese tableware, folk artworks, antique kimono and more.

In case of rain, the event is cancelled.

The National Stadium’s swanky next-door park is hosting a summer beer garden and outdoor cinema festival this month from July 17 to September 27. During the event, the park will be transformed into an open-air beer garden complete with tables, tents and plenty of seating. Hosted by Corona, the beer garden will serve favourites such as Corona Extra (¥750), alongside the brand’s non-alcoholic Corona Cero (¥600) and inventive Corona-infused cocktails. New for 2026 is the Corona Sunsets Truck, which will be serving drinks and appetisers designed to pair perfectly with Corona beer every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

While you’re there, don’t miss the free outdoor film screenings taking place on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. This weekend outdoor cinema event is one of Japan’s largest, with screenings running for over 70 days. While the cinema line-up for 2026 has yet to be announced, last year’s programme featured Academy Award-winning titles such as Green Book and Top Gun: Maverick, as well as family favourites including Paddington, School of Rock, The Minions and more. Note that most screenings are Japanese-dubbed versions of the films.

While entry to the festival is free, a special reservation is required to enter on August 8, when the nearby Jingu Stadium is hosting the Jingu Gaien Fireworks Festival. Capacity is limited to two thousand visitors, so reserve a slot via the official website before it's too late.

Nine months into the year and we've already lost track of how many Oktoberfests Tokyo has seen so far. But no matter, the next seasonally inaccurate festival of German beer happens at Shiba Park from September 11 to 23, where you can take in a view of Tokyo Tower while enjoying hefty glasses of beer. 

You can start small with a regular pint, or go straight for a gigantic three-litre glass. As for the beer, expect limited quantities of autumn-exclusive Festbier, brewed to be served at Munich’s Oktoberfest, alongside 11 other brands, including classics like Hofbräu, Paulaner and more. For 2026, you can also expect draft beer from Meissner, the oldest brewery in Saxony, which will be served in Japan for the first time. The food offerings include pub grub favourites like schnitzels, sausages, jerk chicken, cheese fondue and lobster pasta. Everything comes with a side of jazzed-up oompah music to keep you in the mood.

Entry is just ¥500, and you pay as you go. It includes an exclusive reusable cup which you can take home with you. Purchase your tickets here.

Tokyo Tower’s alternative to the usual summer beer gardens kicks off the outdoor drinking season with a double dose of whisky highball festivals. Head to the terrace at the base of the tower for a wide selection of highballs alongside snacks like karaage and grilled bacon.

There’s also a meatier option on the roof of the Tokyo Tower Foot Town, where the Tokyo Tower Rooftop Highball Garden serves all-you-can-eat jingisukan, the Hokkaido-born lamb barbecue named after Mongol warlord Genghis Khan.

Two hours of all-you-can-drink alcohol and limitless jingisukan costs ¥6,300 (teens aged 13-19 ¥4,300, primary school students ¥3,300, children aged 4-6 ¥2,300, all with non-alcoholic drinks, of course).

The Tokyo Tower Ultimate Kaku Highball Garden at the base of the tower is open until October 12, from 4pm-10pm on weekdays and 12noon-10pm on Sat, Sun & holidays.

The Tokyo Tower Rooftop Highball Garden is open until October 18, from 5pm-10pm daily. Make your reservations here.

Shinjuku welcomes a brand new Korean pub-style beer garden, located on the rooftop of the Lumine Est shopping complex in the heart of the city. You can choose from four meal plans: the Pocha course (¥3,500), which includes yangnyeom chicken and bulgogi kimbap; the Korean Chicken BBQ course (from ¥4,000), offering chicken marinated in sweet and spicy miso sauce as well as salted green onion sauce; the samgyeopsal and beef galbi course (¥5,000), featuring makgeolli-aged samgyeopsal and seafood pancake; and the premium BBQ course (from ¥6,000), which builds on the samgyeopsal set with the addition of wagyu steak. All four courses come with a two-hour all-you-can-drink plan, with the options including fruit-flavoured soju, makgeolli, highballs, and both Korean and Japanese beers, along with unlimited banchan (Korean mini side dishes), French fries and curry.

‘Cuz I’m the Outcast’ is the first solo exhibition in Tokyo from I Fuck Tokyo, the anonymous photographer who catches the city at the point where everyone stops trying to look respectable.

After a friend handed her a film camera on a night out, she began photographing the difference between people’s sober selves and the looser, less self-conscious versions that surfaced after dark. The camera became a way into Tokyo’s young subcultures, while the I Fuck Tokyo persona gave her the freedom to push back against a city that can be notoriously hard to belong to.

For this new series, she moves beyond spontaneous street and nightlife photography. Friends and collaborators from fashion and music become characters in staged, surreal scenes built from memories, private conversations and fleeting encounters. The result sits somewhere between document and confession, with all the anger, intimacy and refusal packed into the name I Fuck Tokyo.

South Korean digital art and design firm D’strict is joining hands with Sanrio to bring a popular interactive exhibit to Japan for the first time after a successful run in Seoul last year. Utilising the latest digital media technologies, the hotel-themed exhibition in Shinjuku’s Tokyu Kabukicho Tower takes you on a photogenic and immersive journey through 11 themed areas in the imaginary hotel, with characters such as Hello Kitty, My Melody, Kuromi, Cinnamoroll and Pompompurin appearing in their own dreamy, fairytale-like rooms.

While the full details are still under wraps, expect to see a plentiful line-up of exclusive Sanrio merch, including Hotel Floria room key charms, hotel sticker sets and travel-themed accessories.

The exhibition space is located on the fourth floor. Tickets are now on sale via Eplus.

When the boundless imagination of Pablo Picasso meets the vibrant creativity of Sir Paul Smith, fireworks follow. Picasso (1881–1973), 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.

‘Adventure of Playful Spirits’ offers a fresh encounter with approximately 80 works from the Musée National Picasso-Paris. Following the success of the 2023 Paris exhibition ‘Picasso Celebration: The Collection in a New Light!’, this Japan edition invites visitors to rediscover the painter’s creative evolution from his early Portrait of a Man to the tender Paulo as Harlequin, through Smith’s imaginative spatial design.

From colour-splashed walls to whimsical décor, every element of the exhibition reflects Smith’s joyful spirit and his fascination with artistic play. This meeting of two creative giants – one who shaped modern art and another who redefined contemporary design – conjures up a vibrant, immersive world where curiosity, humour and craftsmanship intertwine.

Minami Tada (1924–2014) was a quietly radical figure in post-war Japanese art whose practice unfolded across sculpture, relief, lighting and architectural space. Working at the intersection of art, design and emerging industrial technologies, Tada developed a distinctive visual language that embraced transparency, reflection and light – materials and phenomena closely tied to Japan’s rapid economic growth. As a pioneering female artist operating in a male-dominated field, her work anticipated many later conversations around spatial perception and the expanded field of sculpture.

From August 29 to December 6, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo presents the artist’s first solo exhibition in Tokyo in 35 years. This long-overdue retrospective traces the arc of Tada’s career, from early paintings to her most emblematic sculptural works, as well as large-scale pieces created for architectural settings. Drawing on industrial materials and contemporary technologies, her works explore how light interacts with form and space, producing effects that shift with the viewer’s movement.

The exhibition also includes archival materials that shed light on the artist’s process and intellectual context, situating her practice within broader developments in post-war Japanese art and design. At a moment when interest in overlooked modernist figures is growing both in Japan and internationally, ‘Still, shimmering light’ offers a timely reassessment of an artist whose work feels strikingly current. Elegant, experimental and forward-looking, the exhibition reintroduces Tada as a vital voice in the history of contemporary art.

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 that true design begins with imagination and magic.

Ron Mueck has long been celebrated for redefining figurative sculpture through extraordinary craftsmanship and emotional acuity. After early work in film and advertising, the Australian-born, UK-based artist emerged on the contemporary art scene in the mid-1990s, gaining international attention with Pinocchio (1996) and Dead Dad (1996-97), the latter exhibited in the landmark ‘Sensation’ show at London’s Royal Academy in 1997.

Over the decades, his meticulously crafted human figures, rendered at startlingly altered scales, have probed themes of vulnerability, solitude, resilience and the fragile complexity of existence. With a rare and limited oeuvre of about fifty works, each sculpture distills months or even years of observation and reflection, resulting in pieces that feel at once hyper-real and quietly enigmatic.

From April 29 to September 23, the Mori Art Museum hosts the artist’s first solo exhibition in Japan in eighteen years. Organised in collaboration with the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, the exhibition gathers eleven works tracing Mueck’s evolution, including six making their Japanese debut. Its monumental centrepiece is the Japan premiere of Mass (2016-17), an immersive installation of 100 giant skulls reconfigured to reflect the museum’s architecture. Other highlights include Angel (1997), Woman with Shopping (2013) and the iconic In Bed (2005), each inviting viewers into a deeply intimate emotional space.

Complementing the sculptures, photographs and films by Gautier Deblonde offer a glimpse into Mueck’s studio practice, revealing the quiet rigour behind some of contemporary art’s most affecting works.

This expansive exhibition is the largest in the Doraemon franchise’s 56-year history, bringing together manga panels, animation, sculptures, limited-edition merch and a themed food menu all starring the world’s favourite blue robot cat and his friends. It launched in Hong Kong in July 2024, attracting over five million visitors during its month-long run. Since then, it has continued to captivate fans across Asia, making its way through several cities including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Bangkok, and Kaohsiung in Taiwan.

The exhibition space contains over 100 distinct Doraemon figures, each with its own expression and costume. In addition to showcasing the content from the previous cities, the Tokyo exhibition also features Japan-exclusive works. Here you can see Doraemon transformed into a shiba inu, a sumo wrestler and a few other forms inspired by Japanese culture, as well as view two original animations not seen elsewhere.

‘100% Doraemon & Friends’ runs until September 30 and is open from 10am to 6pm daily (last entry 5.30pm). Tickets start from ¥2,400 for adults, ¥1,800 for primary and secondary school students and ¥1,600 for children four years old and below – purchase yours here. As an added bonus, upon arrival exhibition visitors receive one of nine Doraemon-themed acrylic pins and one of four promotional cards (both chosen at random).

The Pola Museum of Art celebrates two milestones with ‘The New Vision: Monet and the Contemporary Gaze’, a large-scale exhibition marking both the museum’s 25th anniversary and the centenary of the death of Claude Monet (1840–1926). Running from June 17 2026 to April 7 2027, the exhibition brings together all nineteen Monet paintings from the museum’s renowned collection, the largest trove of the Impressionist master’s works in Asia, alongside works by 18 contemporary artists from Japan and abroad.

Spanning Monet’s career from his early landscapes to his celebrated Water Lilies, ‘The New Vision’ places the artist’s works in dialogue with contemporary artistic practices. Featuring artists including Lucas Arruda, Pierre Huyghe, Roni Horn, Wolfgang Tillmans, Fujiko Nakaya, Kapwani Kiwanga and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, the exhibition explores the theme of vision through a wide range of media, from photography, installation and sound to performance and environmental works. Many artists are being introduced to Japanese museum audiences for the first time, while several new commissions created specifically around Monet’s legacy also make their debut.

Extending beyond the galleries into the museum’s lobby and the surrounding forests of Hakone, the exhibition transforms the entire site into a landscape of visual discovery. By bringing together Monet’s enduring vision and the perspectives of contemporary artists, ‘The New Vision’ offers a compelling reflection on how we see, experience and understand the world today.