[About Exhibition]

The Takahashi Ryutaro Collection is a contemporary art collection started in earnest in 1997 by psychiatrist Ryutaro Takahashi, one of Japan’s foremost art collectors, who currently owns over 3000 pieces. This exhibition is centered around works from this collection. It will offer a comprehensive view of the diversity of Japanese contemporary art, featuring pieces by artists including Keizaburo Okamura, Tomoko Konoike, Kishio Suga, Akira Yamaguchi and Tadanori Yokoo, who embrace the culture, art and values established throughout Japan’s long history and reinterpret them from their unique perspectives and express them in new forms and methods.

Japanese culture and art have evolved while changing with the times by flexibly taking in and interpreting a wide variety of foreign cultures. With such unique flexibility and sensibility, contemporary artists in Japan have achieved an unparalleled level of originality by embracing and confronting the culture and art of Japan. By the works on display in this exhibition, we explore what contemporary artists have found in traditional Japanese culture and art, and how they have applied it to their own creative expression. We hope that, through this exhibition, visitors will be able to explore the DNA of Japanese contemporary art and discover its appeal in new ways, and support Nippon contemporary art in the future.

[Highlights]

●Works of art emerge in light and shade

Impressive large-scale works by Keizaburo Okamura and works by Hiroshi Sugimoto, Yu-ichi Inoue, Kazumi Kurigami and others resonate with each other, creating a special exhibition space where the works emerge in light and shade.

●Uniquely Japanese pieces focusing on techniques, materials, and motifs

This exhibition features works by Tsuyoshi Ozawa, Tomoko Konoike, Hisashi Tenmyouya, Akira Yamaguchi, Tadanori Yokoo and others who incorporate traditional techniques, materials and motifs unique to Japan into their varied forms of expression.

●Transcendental contemporary works of art utilizing exquisite techniques

This exhibition features various two-dimensional and three-dimensional works created with extraordinary technique, including large plates by Masayasu Mitsuke, ink-wash paintings by Hidenori Yamaguchi, and sculptures by Yoshihiro Suda and Masaya Hashimoto.

●Mono-ha artworks — an essential art movement of Japanese contemporary art scene

The exhibition features pieces by Koji Enokura, Kishio Suga, Nobuo Sekine, Lee Ufan and others who are representative of the Japanese Mono-ha art movement of the late 1960s and 1970s.

●Approximately 20 works will be exhibited for the first time as part of the Takahashi Ryutaro Collection.

Many pieces will be on show for the first time, including an installation by Kasetsu, a video piece by Tabaimo, and a sculpture by Motohiko Odan

【About The Takahashi Ryutaro Collection】

The Takahashi Ryutaro Collection is a contemporary art collection that started in earnest by psychiatrist, Ryutaro Takahashi in 1997. Starting from Yayoi Kusama and Sawako Goda, the collection focuses on contemporary Japanese art, and consists of many early and representative works by artists such as Yoshitomo Nara, Takashi Murakami, Kenji Yanobe, Tomoko Konoike, Makoto Aida, Akira Yamaguchi, Kohei Nawa, Izumi Kato, Aiko Miyanaga, and Manabu Ikeda who are today highly acclaimed figures within the international art scene. Since 2008, collection exhibitions have been held in 23 public and private art museums across the world. Through exhibitions such as, neoteny japan –Takahashi Collection (Kirishima Open Air Museum, Sapporo Art Park, the Ueno Royal Museum, and other venues), TAKAHASHI COLLECTION: Mindfulness! (Nagoya City Art Museum and other venues), TAKAHASHI COLLECTION: Mirror Neuron (Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery), and Cosmos / Intime –The Takahashi Collection (Maison de la Culture du Japon à Paris), it continues to provide various opportunities to encounter some of the most remarkable contemporary artists and their works. In 2020, Ryutaro Takahashi received the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award for his great contribution to the promotion and popularization of contemporary art. At the exhibition, INSIDE THE COLLECTOR’S VAULT Vol.1, which was held at WHAT MUSEUM in Warehouse TERRADA, the works of Sawako Goda, Yayoi Kusama, Makoto Aida that are, in essence, the origins of the Takahashi Ryutaro Collection, were presented along with large-scale masterpieces by Aki Kondo and Kei Imazu, as well as works of a new trend and generation of artists including Hiraku Suzuki, Kazuki Umezawa, Yuko Mohri, Rikako Kawauchi, Nanae Mitobe, DIEGO, and BIEN. The collection currently continues to be in progression, with Ryutaro Takahashi actively engaging in discovering new artists, in addition to his on-going efforts towards the reassessment of artworks.

【Information of Audio Guides】

Descriptions of artworks and commentary by the collector will be available.
By downloading the official WHAT MUSEUM app, visitors can use the audio guide.

[Concurrent Exhibition]

WHAT MUSEUM will hold Open Creation of Art for the first time during this exhibition. There will be a special workspace, and an artist will visit to create new works, while completed works will also be exhibited.