Tokyo Art ± Culture Meetup

Meeting Time: 1:30PM (13:30)
Meeting Spot: Around the entrance of Gallery Ma
(https://jp.toto.com/gallerma/about/map_e.htm)

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First Exhibition
Emerging Architecture, Own Ways

Venue
Gallery Ma
(https://jp.toto.com/gallerma/about/map_e.htm)

Admission Fee
Free

Information about the Exhibition
"The exhibition is a documentary that traces the struggles of the twenty teams who posed questions and realized their ideas while confronting complex situations, through drawings, models, and other materials displayed throughout the venue. Furthermore, it is also an attempt to highlight the key players in new architecture through their practices." [from the Museum Website]

Official Website (Japanese)
https://jp.toto.com/gallerma/ex250724/index_e.htm

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Second Exhibition
The Architecture of Sou Fujimoto: Primordial Future Forest

Venue
Mori Art Museum
(https://art-view.roppongihills.com/en/info/)

Admission Fee
¥2,300

Information about the exhibition
"With offices in Tokyo, Paris, and Shenzhen, Sou Fujimoto (born 1971 in Hokkaido, Japan) is engaged in projects all over the world, ranging from private homes to universities, retail premises, hotels, and multi-purpose complexes. Since his high-profile debut with The Aomori Museum of Art Design Competition Proposal in 2000, he has completed a series of celebrated projects, including the Musashino Art University Museum & Library (2010, Tokyo) and the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013 (London), and recently the housing complex L’Arbre Blanc (The White Tree, 2019, Montpellier, France) and the music-focused cultural complex House of Music, Hungary (2021, Budapest). One of Japan’s leading architects at the center of public attention, he was appointed as the Site Design Producer for Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan.
This exhibition is the first major survey of Fujimoto’s work. It provides a comprehensive overview in eight sections, covering everything from work in his early years to projects currently underway, and following his architectural journey over the past around thirty years, the features of his architecture, and the philosophy behind it. It takes advantage of the venue’s expertise as a contemporary art museum, allowing anyone, not just people working involved in architecture, to physically experience the essence of Fujimoto’s oeuvre by including exhibits such as installations and large-scale models that provide a spatial experience, as well as a mock-up. These complement conventional exhibits like scale models, plans, and photos of completed projects. The exhibition also reviews the role and potential of architecture through Fujimoto’s vision of the future city." [from the Exhibition Website]

Official Website
https://jp.toto.com/gallerma/ex250724/index_e.htm

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Chat session
We will take a coffee break between the first and second show to have a chat session.

"Kinzō, a painter of Tosa, worked on many paintings such as folding screens of Kabuki play, Ema lanterns, May festival banners, etc., from the end of the Edo period to the beginning of the Meiji era. He has been familiar with his hometown of Kōchi for many years under the nickname “Ekin-san.” The custom of displaying folding screens of Ekin for several days during the summer festival has not changed. Scenes from frightening Kabuki stories are lit up by lanterns and candles in the precincts of shrines and under the eaves of shopping streets in various places in Kōchi. They leave a vivid impression on those who see them in the darkness of a midsummer night.
Ekin’s folding screens were such a part of everyday life that there was an old saying, “When a rain shower came at a summer festival, I put away the paper lanterns before the folding screens.” Ekingura was opened in Akaoka-chō, Kōnan City, Kōchi Prefecture in 2005. Also, the Ekin School Art Gallery was established at Creative Park ACTLAND (currently ACT Museum), which opened in Noichi-chō, Kōnan City in 2015. As a result, Ekin’s achievements have been reevaluated, and the environment for preserving, researching and exhibiting his works has improved in recent years. The Museum of Art, Kōchi held large-scale exhibitions of Ekin in 1996 and 2012, but most of the approximately 200 existing folding screens are owned by shrines, residents’ associations, neighborhood associations, community centers, etc. For that reason, it is a rare opportunity to see Ekin’s work in one place.
Ekin was featured in the magazine Taiyō in 1966, and Ekin became a temporary boom, including novels, stage performances and movies. Exhibitions of Ekin were held at department stores in Tokyo and Osaka around 1970. This large-scale exhibition of Ekin’s masterpieces is the first in Tokyo in half a century and the first such undertaking at any art museum." [from the exhibition website]

Location
Suntory Museum of Art
(https://www.suntory.com/sma/map/)

Exhibition to see
Ekin: A Genius Painter from Tosa at the End of the Edo Period

Meeting Time
04:00 PM (16:00)

Meeting Spot
Around the entrance of the Suntory Museum of Art

Admission Fee
¥1,800

Description of the exhibition
https://www.suntory.com/sma/exhibition/2025_4/index.html

Chat session after the show
As usual, let's have a chat session at the end of the event. When we meet up before the exhibition, let's decide where we go after the show.