MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART TOKYO

A PERSONAL VIEW OF JAPANESE CONTEMPORARY ART: TAKAHASHI RYUTARO COLLECTION

Containing more than 3,000 works, Ryutaro Takahashi’s collection of postwar and contemporary Japanese art is one of the world’s most important of its kind. Takahashi, a successful psychiatrist who was active in the radical student movement of the 1960s, started collecting art in the mid-1990s when he took an interest in artists whose practices both responded to and resisted the sense of stagnation in Japanese society following the collapse of the bubble economy at the beginning of the decade. His collection includes works by Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, and Yoshitomo Nara, now all global stars. Takahashi’s collection practice eventually led him to identify neoteny (the adult retention of juvenile characteristics) as a theme that distinguishes much of recent Japanese art. This exhibition will juxtapose the personal perspective of an individual collector with the larger art historical currents that MOT has been tracing through its programming.

Also on view will be a solo exhibition of Yoshiaki Kaihatsu, known for his interest in the theme of communication in everyday life and social occurrences, and the museum’s collection display, which features a focus on female artists and a section devoted to the theme of the “gaze” alongside recent acquisitions.