20 best art exhibitions in Tokyo right now

Held in the Tokyo Node creative complex on the upper floors of the Toranomon Station Tower, the Design Ah! exhibition by national broadcaster NHK transforms its acclaimed educational TV programme (of the same name) into a vivid hands-on experience. Suitable for visitors of all ages, the exhibition reimagines everyday actions like walking or eating through a design lens, fostering curiosity, creative thinking, and a sharper awareness of the world around us. While you’re there, don’t miss the chance to try out the interactive gesture screen, where visitors are invited to use gestures to interact with subjects in a video in an immersive and responsive way.

With immersive 360-degree audiovisual installations, visual puzzles and interactive zones, the show offers a playful yet thought-provoking way to explore how design influences daily life.

In the news for his role as the designer of the Expo 2025 site, Sou Fujimoto is an architect whose work explores the relationship between nature and architecture. Born in Hokkaido, he is inspired by the natural landscapes of his childhood and seeks to integrate organic forms into the built environment through an approach he calls ‘primitive future’.

This philosophy translates into an exploration of the limits between indoors and outdoors and the natural and the artificial, creating spaces that invite a new experience of inhabiting it. Fujimoto’s residential projects in Japan, such as House N, House O and House T, as well as international projects such as the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London, illustrate this desire to blur spatial boundaries. His work is characterised by the use of simple materials, often only one per project, implemented in innovative ways to create complex and intriguing shapes. The balance between a defined program and the freedom of appropriation by the occupants is at the heart of his approach.

Fujimoto’s first major Tokyo retrospective takes over the Mori Art Museum from July 2 to November 9. The exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of the architect’s journey over the past quarter century, showcasing his achievements. Models, plans and documentary photographs sit alongside life-size models and installations, providing an immersive visual and spatial experience of the essence of his work. The exhibition highlights projects such as the Musashino Art University Museum & Library, the Arbre Blanc in Montpellier, France, the House of Music in Budapest, and – yes – the Expo site on Osaka’s Yumeshima.

Kanagawa-born, NYC-based Aki Sasamoto’s decompartmentalised artistic practice explores performance, sculpture, dance, and any other medium conducive to the expression of her ideas. At the intersection of visual and performing arts, her work involves collaborating with musicians, choreographers, scientists and academics, and she often takes on multiple roles: performer and sculptor, but also professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Sculpture at Yale University.

In her work, Sasamoto constantly reflects on the design and configuration of sculptures and devices that she uses as scores during improvised performances within immersive installations. As she describes it, her creative process is akin to fishing: she ‘casts a net and waits for a perfect alignment of events’, letting several elements float before grasping the connections by relating them to seemingly foreign references.

On from August 23 to November 24, ‘Aki Sasamoto’s Life Laboratory’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo explores the interplay between sculptural creation and performance that has characterised the artist’s work for two decades. From landmark early works to more recent creations that emphasise kinetic elements, the exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of Sasamoto’s journey and unique approach, where the boundaries between artistic disciplines blur in favour of captivating hybrid expression.

Traditional Japanese erotic art – shunga – flourished during the Edo period (1603–1867), along with the rise of ukiyo-e woodblock printing. Some of the greatest artists of the time, including Kitagawa Utamaro and Katsushika Hokusai, employed ukiyo-e to depict Edo’s hedonistic ‘floating world’ of geisha, kabuki, sumo – and sex. Shunga was in great demand and widely available, despite an official ban, and developed into a highly sophisticated genre in which artists incorporated references to waka poetry and the Chinese classics while tiptoeing around taboos and government censorship.

But once Japan opened itself up to the Western world after centuries of isolation, Shunga was deemed ‘obscene’ and purged from the culture – for nearly 150 years, it turned out. Only after several critically acclaimed exhibitions had been held overseas did the first major display of Shunga open on these shores – at the Eisei Bunko Museum in 2013. That landmark show slowly cleared the way for similar exhibitions, and now Tokyo’s getting perhaps the most rousing (sorry) Shunga show to date.

From July 26 to September 30, visitors to the Shinjuku Kabukicho Noh Stage can rest their eyes on around 100 pieces by the likes of Hokusai, Utamaro and Hishikawa Moronobu. Curated from the collection of Mitsuru Uragami, one of Japan’s foremost Shunga connoisseurs, the exhibition extends throughout the distinctive venue – from the Noh stage itself to the auditorium and dressing rooms. Yasutaka Hayashi from artist collective Chim↑Pom from Smappa!Group serves as art director, bringing a hefty serving of Kabukicho flair to a show that’s perfect for Tokyo’s most stimulating entertainment district.

Tickets are available at the door and via ArtSticker. Note that the exhibition is off limits to visitors under the age of 18.

Creator of the iconic Great Wave off Kanagawa – and more than 30,000 other works across a remarkable 90-year life – Katsushika Hokusai was known for his restless spirit (he moved 93 times) and ever-evolving identity (he used more than 30 artist names). And by the way, the ukiyo-e impresario’s prolific genius also laid the foundation for what we now recognise as manga and anime.

This autumn, ‘Hokusai’ at Creative Museum Tokyo offers an immersive journey into the artist’s seemingly boundless world. With over 300 pieces on display, including the complete Hokusai Manga (from the world-famous Uragami Collection), all three volumes of One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, and a set of 16 newly discovered hand-painted works from his final years, the show promises unprecedented depth.

And as we’ve come to expect from this venue, the artworks on display will be accompanied by some certifiably contemporary exhibits. These include animated adaptations of Hokusai prints by top Japanese animators, highlighting how the visual storytelling of Edo’s greatest artist continues to resonate. Be sure to exit through the gift shop for a look at some 150 pieces of exclusive merch, including collaborations with Peanuts, Chums and Swiss Army knife maker Victorinox.

Bringing together 16 artists across generations and disciplines, this dynamic group exhibition explores the creative energy of ‘MADs’ – better known as AMVs or anime music videos – a phenomenon rooted in online communities where derivative works are made by deconstructing and reassembling existing media such as anime, games and sound.

Co-curated by artists Namonaki Sanemasa and Kazuki Umezawa, ‘Mad Image’ spans painting, sculpture, video and sound installation, reflecting a diverse spectrum of practices united by the processes of fragmentation and reconstruction. Created by artists ranging from teenagers to established practitioners in their fifties, the works capture the fractured landscapes of contemporary life while questioning how meaning is made in an era where digital images and information flow endlessly across screens.

For Sanemasa and Umezawa, who both exhibit in the show in addition to serving as curators, ‘Mad Image’ is less about offering a definitive framework than about creating a temporary space – a ‘small hut’, as Sanemasa puts it – where art can pause, reassemble, and invite reflection. In this gathering of experimental voices, Mizuma Art Gallery becomes a site for imagining new ways to connect amid the disjointed commons of our time.

Marking 100 years since the dawn of the Showa era and 80 years since the end of World War II, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo looks back with ‘Opening Documents, Weaving Memories’, an exhibition that reflects on Japan’s turbulent mid-20th century. With 280 works on view, the display explores how art has served both as a record of history and as a medium for reconstructing memory across generations.

Spanning the 1930s to the 1970s, the exhibition unfolds across eight sections that probe the role of painting, photography and film during wartime and its aftermath. Visitors encounter powerful ‘War Record Paintings’, commissioned by the Imperial Japanese army and navy to document battles, alongside intimate portrayals of life on the home front. Works such as Ai-Mitsu’s Self-Portrait (1944) and Ken’Ichi Nakamura’s Kota Bharu (1942) highlight the complex intersections of personal expression and state narrative. Later sections trace the shifting visual language of memory, from depictions of wounded bodies in the 1950s to dialogues prompted by Vietnam War imagery in the 1970s.

By juxtaposing propaganda, personal visions and post-war reinterpretations, the exhibition invites audiences to consider how museums can act as repositories of collective memory. In doing so, it opens documents of the past while weaving them into living dialogues with the present and future.

Daido Moriyama has spent over six decades redefining the possibilities of photography. Born in 1938, he emerged in the 1960s with raw, high-contrast images that challenged conventional aesthetics and captured the restless energy of post-war Japan. His international recognition, as seen in exhibitions from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to London’s Tate Modern, established the Osaka native as a global icon. Honoured with the Hasselblad Award in 2019, Moriyama continues to shape the visual language of photography with unmatched vitality.

Until October 27, GR Space Tokyo presents ‘Daido Moriyama: In Tokyo’, an exhibition marking the Harajuku venue’s first anniversary. Divided into two phases and featuring around 60 new works shot with the Ricoh GR series, the display captures the shifting landscapes and fleeting human presences of the city in 2025.

Free to enter, the exhibition invites visitors to experience the immediacy and intensity of a metropolis in constant flux, distilled through the lens of one of Japan’s greatest living photographers.

Hokkaido-born Atsushi Suwa is one of Japan’s foremost contemporary realist painters. Noted for his extraordinary technical mastery, Suwa combines rigorous research with a penetrating gaze, producing works that explore physical likeness and themes such as memory, mythology and the traces of history. His portraits, still lifes and narrative paintings have earned him wide acclaim both in Japan and abroad.

From September 11 to March 1 2026, the What Museum on Tennozu Isle presents the artist’s first large-scale solo exhibition in three years. Encompassing around 80 works, the exhibition spans early creations, intimate family portraits and newly painted still lifes, with nearly 30 of the pieces shown publicly for the first time. At the heart of the display is At the Shore (2025), a monumental painting depicting a human-like figure assembled from objects in Suwa’s studio, reflecting the artist’s pandemic-era withdrawal from portraiture and his gradual reawakening to the human form.

Curated by Takenori Miyamoto, the exhibition unfolds across five themed rooms and is accompanied by a documentary film and a short story by Akutagawa Prize winner Kaori Fujino.

Few artists have touched the soul of modern art as profoundly as Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). In a mere decade, the Dutchman produced an astonishing body of work, including vivid landscapes, tormented portraits and expressive still lifes, that continues to resonate deeply with audiences worldwide.

Yet Van Gogh’s posthumous fame owes much to those closest to him: his brother Theo, Theo’s wife Johanna, and their son Vincent Willem. Together, they ensured that the painter’s vision and legacy would endure for generations.

The first exhibition in Japan to focus on the Van Gogh family and their collection, ‘Van Gogh’s Home’ at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum features over 30 of its protagonist’s works, from early drawings to late masterpieces, as well as four letters shown on these shores for the first time. The display traces the journey of the collection from the artist’s death to the present day, with highlights including immersive digital experiences and rarely seen works by Van Gogh’s contemporaries.

Marking 80 years since the end of the Pacific War and 40 years since Setagaya’s Peace City Declaration, the Lifestyle Design Center in Sangenjaya’s Carrot Tower invites visitors to reflect on childhood, daily life and peace across the turbulent decades of Showa Japan.

Curated by Akio Kasuga, a noted scholar of design and children’s culture and a professor emeritus at Tokyo Zokei University, the exhibition draws from his remarkable collection of more than 6,000 objects. On view are board games, picture books, magazines, toys, school supplies and everyday items spanning the pre-war, wartime and post-war years. These materials reveal how social upheaval, political control and cultural transformation were reflected in the lives of children.

The displays capture both the constraints of wartime propaganda and the post-war re-emergence of colour, creativity and hope, from early heroes of manga and animation to the optimism of rapid economic growth. By revisiting the tools of play and learning that shaped generations, the exhibition encourages visitors to consider the enduring themes of war, peace and the future of childhood in Japan.

With ‘Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989–2010’, the National Art Center, Tokyo offers an illuminating look at how Japanese and international artists responded to an era of seismic change – namely the two transformative decades that followed the end of the Showa era (1926–1989), when the Cold War’s conclusion and the onset of globalisation reshaped the world’s cultural landscape.

Featuring works by over 50 artists, the exhibition traces the evolution of contemporary art in Japan from the early stirrings of internationalisation in the 1980s through a period of creative fermentation marked by technological shifts, socio-political upheaval and the expansion of global dialogue. Across three thematic sections, visitors will be able to view a diverse array of works that grapple with identity, memory, war trauma, and the forging of new communal bonds.

Like a prism refracting light into myriad wavelengths, the exhibition highlights the multiplicity of perspectives that shaped artistic expression in Japan between 1989 and 2010, offering visitors a powerful lens on a pivotal cultural moment in Japan’s (and the world’s) history.

Though he died at just 37, Vincent van Gogh left behind a body of work that revolutionised modern art; an oeuvre celebrated for its swirling brushstrokes, bold colours and raw emotional force. Yet the Dutch master’s legacy is shaped as much by his turbulent life as by his luminous canvases, and this narrative of suffering and passion continues to captivate audiences around the world.

With ‘A Renewal of Passion’, the Pola Museum of Art in Hakone presents its first-ever exhibition dedicated to the post-Impressionist painter. Running until November 30, the display features key works from the museum’s own collection alongside historical and contemporary responses to Van Gogh’s art, highlighting how his fervent creativity has inspired generations of artists across continents and eras.

The show emphasises Van Gogh’s influence in Japan, where his deeply personal style resonated as early as the Meiji era (1868–1912), and highlights modern reinterpretations by artists such as Yasumasa Morimura and Fiona Tan. Composed of paintings, installations and archival materials, the exhibition offers a poignant meditation on the enduring power of Van Gogh’s vision in a changing world.

The whimsical world of Moomin returns to Tokyo this summer with ‘Tove Jansson and the Moomins’, opening at the Mori Arts Center Gallery from July 16 to September 17. Held in celebration of the 80th anniversary of the first Moomin novel, the exhibition offers an opportunity to explore the artistic universe of Tove Jansson, the Finnish creator behind one of the world’s most beloved literary families.

Organised in cooperation with the Helsinki Art Museum, the exhibition brings together approximately 300 items that trace Jansson’s multifaceted career. From early, surrealist-inspired oil paintings and satirical cartoons from the pre- and post-war periods to original illustrations and sketches for the Moomin books and comics, the show reveals the depth and diversity of her creative legacy. Personal items and lesser-known works, many being shown in Japan for the first time, provide further insight into Jansson’s imaginative world.

Visitors will also be treated to immersive installations that bring the Moomin Valley to life, inviting both long-time fans and new visitors to step into the poetic and philosophical realm of the Moomins – a world shaped by Tove Jansson’s personal values, humour and enduring artistry.

Head to the Tokyo National Museum’s Heiseikan this summer for a sweeping exploration of the secretive inner chambers of the Tokugawa shogunate. On show from July 19 to September 21, ‘Ooku: Women of Power in Edo Castle’ takes viewers into the secluded quarters that housed the wives, concubines and ladies-in-waiting of the shoguns – women who navigated a world of rigid hierarchy, political intrigue and quiet resilience behind locked doors and copper-clad walls.

Though immortalised in popular culture through kabuki, television dramas and manga, the real ooku was far more nuanced than fiction suggests. The exhibition sheds new light on reality through approximately 180 rarely seen artefacts, including historical documents, architectural diagrams, exquisite kimonos, personal effects and intricate ceremonial textiles.

Highlights include 31 embroidered cloths (kakefukusa), which were placed upon important gifts exchanged in the palace, from the Genroku era (1688–1704); elegant garments worn by women from samurai families; and the complete Chiyoda no Ooku (1894–1896) series of ukiyo-e prints by Toyohara Chikanobu, which depict daily life in Edo Castle as imagined by the artist some 30 years after the fall of the shogunate. Visitors can also view kabuki costumes worn by women actors who performed within the Ooku itself.

Highlighting personal stories and treasured objects alike, the exhibition reveals the complexities of life within the shogun’s harem, where power, duty and emotion quietly shaped history. It’s a rare opportunity to step beyond the myth and into the true world of the Ooku.

The Roppongi Museum invites visitors to step into a parallel past this summer with the chilling and poetic ‘1999: Memories of a Day that Doesn’t Exist’, which runs from July 11 to September 27. Inspired by the apocalyptic prophecy of Nostradamus, who famously predicted the world’s end in July 1999, the exhibition explores a question both eerie and alluring: what if it really happened?

Brought to life by the newly formed horror creators’ unit Bermuda 3 – novelist Sesuji, Siren screenwriter Naoko Sato and rising director Masaki Nishiyama – the exhibition offers a sensory narrative that blurs the boundaries between memory and imagination, and reality and fiction.

Guests are led by a mysterious ‘End-Time Girl’ through immersive environments and surreal soundscapes into a world suspended in time: a forgotten room in 1999, phantom voices from a vanishing landscape, and visions from a train window that never existed.

Illustrated by animator and illustrator Mai Yoneyama, the exhibition culminates in a limited-edition short story written by Sesuji, gifted to those who experience the ‘end’. At once unsettling and strangely beautiful, this otherworldly journey dares visitors to remember what never happened, and discover who they might have been.

Alternative art space Kura by UltraSuperNew is welcoming Tokyo- and Seoul-based artist duo Motherlode for an AI-themed exhibit that sees new developments in artificial intelligence not as a threat, but as an opportunity to engage with a playful and generative creative partner.

Putting a positive spin on the usual doom-and-gloom narrative around artificial intelligence, the duo uses their art to explore how AI can expand the possibilities of thinking, making and imagining. Expect human unpredictability and algorithmic logic to come together in works such as 3D-printed anatomies, alternative versions of history, uncanny data-driven portraits and interactive metaphor machines that yield unexpected outcomes – often funny, wildly creative, or absurd.

There will be a kickoff event on September 5 from 6pm.

Visits are by appointment only. Reserve a slot before your visit.