Free things to do in Tokyo this week

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government No 1 Building in Shinjuku serves as the backdrop for a jaw-dropping and record-breaking projection mapping show. Covering an area of a whopping 13,905sqm, the after-dark spectacle has been certified by Guinness World Records as the largest permanent display of its kind in the world. The nightly showcase features a range of visual wonders created by a mix of local and international artists. Some shows are inspired by Tokyo’s rich history, while others draw on themes like the lunar cycle.  Currently, on weeknights, you can catch striking visuals synchronised to ‘800’ and 'Zankyosanka' by hit Japanese pop singer and lyricist Aimer as well as ‘Pac-Man eats Tokyo’, ‘Lunar Cycle’, ‘Synergy’, ‘Tokyo Resonance’ and ‘Evolution’. On weekends, you can look forward to the aforementioned ‘Zankyosanka (Aimer)’, as well as ‘Godzilla: Attack on Tokyo’ and ‘TYO337’, a display featuring motifs of traditional Japanese performing arts such as Kabuki paired with electronic beats.  From March 20, Pokémon Trading Card Game ‘Tokyo Luminous Night’, a brand-new projection-mapping show featuring Pokémon cards on a massive scale, has been running on weekends and holidays from 6.30pm, 7.30pm and 9pm. Be sure to check the event website for more details. Shows take place every night at fifteen-minute intervals from 6pm (Mar from 6.30pm, 7pm from Apr, 7.30pm from May to Aug) to 9.45pm. For more details and to check the full programme of daily projection mapping shows,...

Robert Longo has long turned the visual noise of contemporary life into images of monumental intensity. Best known for his hyperreal charcoal drawings that magnify the political, cultural and emotional charge of mass-media imagery, the New York-based artist has spent four decades probing the fractures beneath American power, spectacle and mythology. Now, after an absence of thirty years, he returns to Japan with ‘Angels of the Maelstrom’, on view at Pace Gallery Tokyo until June 17. This new solo exhibition gathers recent drawings and sculptures shaped by Longo’s enduring dialogue between Japan and the US. Across Pace’s two floors, allegorical images of crashing waves, submerged whales, tigers, mountains and blooming peonies unfold beside portraits of 20th-century American icons, creating a charged visual field where natural force and historical memory collide. At the centre stands Untitled (American Samurai), a monumental depiction of Shohei Ohtani, whom Longo sees as a living emblem of cultural convergence: a Japanese athlete redefining America’s national pastime. The exhibition’s title draws on Angelus Novus, Paul Klee’s haunting image of an angel suspended between surrender and flight, later interpreted by Walter Benjamin as history’s helpless witness. Longo adopts this figure as a lens through which to view the present maelstrom of violence, media saturation and uncertain futures.

Born in Kolkata in 1963 and now based in New York, Rina Banerjee has established herself as a singular voice in the global contemporary art scene. Drawing from her experience of migration and diasporic identity, Banerjee creates intricate, richly layered sculptures and installations out of everyday materials like cotton threads, feathers, shells and glass chandeliers. Her practice, informed by both engineering training and fine art education at Yale, navigates the intersections of postcolonial history, feminism and global exchange, often infusing critical perspectives with a subtle, disarming sense of humour. ‘You made me leave home…’ at Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo is an exhibition of 19 works drawn from the collection of the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Organised as part of the foundation’s ‘Hors-les-murs’ programme, which brings major artworks to venues around the world, the exhibition marks both the 20th anniversary of the Espace Louis Vuitton and a decade of the ‘Hors-les-murs’ initiative. Spanning installation, sculpture and painting, the exhibition foregrounds Banerjee’s ongoing exploration of migration, colonial legacies and the circulation of people and objects. At its core is the monumental installation In an unnatural storm… (2008), presented publicly for the first time by the Fondation. Suspended from the ceiling in a cascading constellation of forms, the work evokes both the wonder and instability of global journeys, drawing inspiration from Jules Verne’s Around the...

The first display of its kind in Japan to comprehensively explore the history and cultural significance of sign design, ‘Grand Sign Exhibition’ at the Tokyo Midtown Design Hub turns the spotlight on a discipline fundamentally embedded in daily life. Organised by the Japan Sign Design Association, the exhibition traces the evolution of signs from postwar Japan to the present day, highlighting their expanding role as complex agents of social connection. At its core is a large-scale presentation structured around eleven thematic contexts, through which 77 landmark projects are examined using photographs, videos, models and mock-ups. Complementing this historical overview, the ‘Material-tone’ section offers a more experimental perspective, showcasing how ten companies reinterpret a single arrow motif through diverse materials and technologies. Meanwhile, a special display dedicated to the late graphic designer Takenobu Igarashi features iconic signage created for Parco, including a neon installation. Bridging design, technology and urban experience, the exhibition reveals how signage shapes the way we perceive and inhabit contemporary space.

Andrius Arutiunian (born 1991) is an Armenian-Lithuanian artist and composer whose practice unfolds at the intersection of sound, ritual and speculative cosmology. Working across installation, performance and moving image, he approaches listening as a hybrid and political act, treating music as an architecture of distorted time. His work, shown at major international exhibitions including the Venice, Shanghai, Gwangju and Lyon Biennales, explores how belief systems, vernacular knowledge and collective rituals shape alternative models of social and temporal order. ‘Obol’, Arutiunian’s first solo exhibition in Japan, takes place from February 20 to May 31 at Le Forum. Presented by Ginza Maison Hermès and curated by Tomoya Iwata, the exhibition 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. Central to the exhibition is a new body of work using bitumen, a petroleum-derived material once imbued with sacred meaning but now relegated to utilitarian use. As both material and metaphor, it anchors a meditation on Charon, the ferryman of the underworld, evoked through silver obols, serpentine forms and generative mythological imagery. Layered soundscapes weave through the space, binding playfulness...

Hirohiko Araki began serialising JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1986, launching a saga that has since spanned decades, generations of protagonists and shifting aesthetic paradigms. Renowned for its flamboyant characters, bold compositions and philosophical undercurrents, JoJo stands apart for its synthesis of classical art, fashion, music and pop culture. With cumulative circulation exceeding 120 million copies, the series has become a global phenomenon, while Araki himself has become recognised as a singular figure bridging manga and contemporary art. From January 8 to June 28, the Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage Tokyo Gallery presents this three-part exhibition that foregrounds Araki’s work through the lens of fine-art printmaking. The exhibition has previously been shown in San Francisco and Kyoto, but this marks the first time Araki’s lithographs and lenticular works are displayed in Tokyo. To allow visitors to encounter as wide a variety of works as possible, the exhibition unfolds in three rotations: Part 1 (January 8–February 23), Part 2 (March 3–April 19) and Part 3 (April 28–June 28). At the heart of the display are nine lithographic prints, produced in 2025 at the request of Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage and representing Araki’s first foray into lithography. Unlike conventional manga printing, which reduces drawings to stark black-and-white data, lithography preserves the artist’s hand with remarkable fidelity. Drawing directly onto metal plates with...

The UNU farmers’ market is one of Tokyo’s longest running and best-attended markets. Taking place every weekend in front of the university’s Aoyama headquarters, this one always attracts a knowledgeable crowd. Organic and local fare is readily available every Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 4pm, with the farmers themselves happy to provide details about their wares. Plus, there's always a few food trucks on hand if you wish to enjoy a quick meal.

Gallery Koyanagi in Ginza presents a new series of collages by Christian Marclay, a pioneering figure in experimental music. Having started out using turntables and vinyl records as instruments before extending his practice into video, collage and installation, the California-born artist’s work interrogates how we perceive, construct and remember sound. Placing auditory experience at the centre of visual form, the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery comes on the 40th anniversary of his first visit to Japan and continues Marclay’s long-standing engagement with sampling and recomposition. The exhibited works draw on fragments of popular culture – magazines, record sleeves, film imagery – reassembled through processes of cutting, layering and omission. In the Concentric Listening series, faces are reduced to hollow outlines, their ears preserved as points of entry into an otherwise absent interior. These nested forms ripple outward, suggesting listening as a cumulative, resonant act. Elsewhere, Oculi (Listening Trio) transforms record sleeves into apertures through which partial images emerge. In Marclay’s hands, collage becomes more than a technique: it operates as a metaphor for perception itself, where meaning arises through fragments, overlaps and echoes.

The historic Shiseido Gallery presents a tribute to the visionary graphic designer Masayoshi Nakajo. Five years after his passing, the exhibition revisits Nakajo’s long and influential relationship with the cosmetics company through around 200 works spanning more than four decades. Nakajo played a pivotal role in shaping Shiseido’s visual culture, producing posters, packaging and advertising designs that blended playful experimentation with refined elegance. Visitors will encounter iconic graphics created for Shiseido Parlour, including biscuit packaging, wrapping papers and promotional posters, alongside original drawings shown publicly for the first time. A central focus of the exhibition is Nakajo’s work as art director of Hanatsubaki, Shiseido’s influential cultural magazine. A special reading corner allows visitors to browse some 350 issues published between 1982 and 2011, offering insight into his distinctive editorial approach, where typography, illustration and photography interact in dynamic visual rhythms. Known for his free-hand compositions and intuitive use of form, Nakajo once said he always chose ‘the design most likely to sing’. This exhibition captures that spirit, where letters become melody, images move like choreography, and graphic design reveals its expressive, almost musical potential.

Step into a world of vibrant chrysanthemums this spring at this free collaborative exhibition between teamLab and Galaxy. Now in its fifth year, the interactive, immersive space at Galaxy Harajuku uses cutting-edge projection mapping to depict flowers caught in an endless cycle of birth and death. Reach out to touch them and they’ll wither; stand still beside them and they’ll bloom more quickly. Look down and you’ll see flowing currents of gold beneath your feet – traces shaped by your very presence. The movements of others create their own currents, which intertwine and form swirling vortices. The result is a constantly shifting environment where no two moments are ever the same. The Galaxy store also invites visitors to capture these fleeting scenes using the foldable smartphones available at the venue.