This is a series of articles in which visitors enjoy learning about the charms of Tokyo’s gardens through photographs by photographer Norihisa Kushibiki and commentary by Miho Tanaka, curator at the Edo-Tokyo Museum.

This time, we visited Kiyosumi Gardens, which is associated with the Iwasaki family, one of the great industrialist families of Japan’s modern era. Known as kaiyu shiki rinsen teien* representing the Meiji Era, the beautiful scenery created by famous stones collected from all over the country has become a favorite place of relaxation for residents.

*Kaiyu shiki rinsen teien is a garden style with a garden path encircling a central pond, and the scenery changes as visitors walk the path.

Photo: Norihisa Kushibiki

Story: Miho Tanaka (Curator at Edo-Tokyo Museum)

Cooperation: Tokyo Metropolitan Park Association

The Tokyu Kabukicho Tower, which opened in Shinjuku Kabukicho on April 14, 2023 (the hotel area opened on May 19), has attracted attention as a super-tall complex facility, with 48 above-ground floors and 5 below-ground floors, making it one of the largest in the country. Inside the tower, which is themed around urban cultural experiences, there are many contemporary art pieces, starting with Chim↑Pom’s work “Build-Burger,” near the entrance on the 2nd floor. The total number of artworks is an astonishing 190 pieces. Many of these artworks are installed in areas such as lounges and hotel guestrooms. In this installment, we will introduce the artworks mainly located in such premium areas.

The Tokyo Museums Grutto Pass 2022 is an admission and discount ticket that can be used at 101 museums and other facilities in the Tokyo area. We are sure that many of you will use it as a tool to enjoy art at reasonable prices.

Electronic tickets that can be purchased online and Grutto Pass Card, which is available at participating facilities’ sales counters, were launched in fiscal 2022, which marked the 20th anniversary of sales. With the QR code, the pass is much easier and more convenient to use.

The price is 2,500 yen. The ticket can be used once for a designated exhibition at each facility for a period of two months from the date of first use. We used this electronic ticket to experience a one-day good deal tour course that includes participating museums newly added in 2022.

In March 2023, a book proposing a new way to appreciate art, “Shaberi nagara miru” (Viewing while talking), was published. It was authored by Kenji Shiratori, a completely blind art appreciator who holds art viewing events, and Maiko Sato, or Maity, an art educator and Shiratori’s friend who has been viewing art with him for many years. Having viewed more than 30 exhibitions to date, they appreciate artworks while conversing with each other. We spoke with the two about their unique approach to “viewing art while talking.”

In this interview series, leading artists will talk about “turning points in their careers” from their youth to the present, including their feelings and changes in their works, along with their current activities. This issue features sculptor Shigeo Toya, whose solo exhibition “Shigeo Toya : Sculpture” (February 25-May 14, 2023) was held at the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama.

In this interview series, leading artists will discuss their careers and turning points to date, as well as their feelings and changes in their work from their youth to the present, along with their current activities. In this issue, we spoke with Yasuko Toyoshima, whose solo exhibition “Yasuko Toyoshima: Origination Method” is currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (through March 10, 2024).

The Tokyo Artpoint Project started in 2009 with the aim of creating many “art points.” So far, it has collaborated with over 50 organizations and carried out 45 projects.

The third installment in a series of interviews with organizations participating in the Tokyo Artpoint Project features the general incorporated association ooo (pronounced ooo), which operates a project metote-lab that began in 2022. While examining the culture that has developed through sign language, metote-lab aims to create a space where people can explore and develop new forms of communication. What kind of “space” is this? We spoke with Natsumi Wada, Kazunori Nemoto, Tae Yoshihara who are among 10 members of ooo, and Saeko Oyama, a program officer of Arts Council Tokyo.

Next Tokyo Discovery Squad! is a series of interviews with people who creatively uncover the history and culture of various parts of Tokyo. We introduce the Tokyo Artpoint Project, a project that aims to create many “art points” in Tokyo.

Tokyo Artpoint Project is Arts Council Tokyo’s wide-ranging program of art projects organized with Tokyo Metropolitan Government as well as nonprofits and other partners. Since launching in 2009, Tokyo Artpoint Project has worked with 56 organizations and carried out 45 projects in the city. Here we will cover three of the nonprofit organizations that have participated in this project and report on them in a series of articles.

At the Tokyo Shibuya Koen-dori Gallery, “Art Brut 2023 Touring Exhibition ‘Dear Stories: Tales and Talks’” is being held from October 21 to December 24, 2023. Serving as the audio guide navigator for this exhibition is the actor and artist actively making a name of himself, Win Morisaki. Mr. Morisaki, making his first attempt at being an audio guide for an art exhibition, promptly visited the venue and engaged with the art pieces featured in the exhibition, guided by Kaoru Ouchi, this exhibition’s planner and a curator of the gallery.

The Tokyo Artpoint Project, which is a joint project of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Arts Council Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture), and (various) nonprofit organizations, in aimed at creating a plethora of artpoints in Tokyo. Since its inception in 2009, the Tokyo Artpoint Project has conducted 45 projects in collaboration with more than 50 organizations.

In this second in our series of interviews with organizations participating in the Tokyo Artpoint Project, we take a look at Shimaclass Kouzushima General Incorporated Association, which runs the HAPPY TURN/Kouzushima art project on the island of Kouzushima in the Pacific Ocean. We interviewed Kei Nakamura and Tomoyo Iijima, both work for secretariat of the project, and Shunsuke Sakurai, a program officer of Arts Council Tokyo.

The Marunouchi Street Gallery is a project that exhibits works by masters of modern sculpture and internationally renowned contemporary artists along Tokyo’s Marunouchi Naka-dori Street. The project began in 1972 under the leadership of Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd. with the aim of enhancing the cultural power of Marunouchi. The individual works are replaced every few years, and the townscape scenery is renewed on a regular basis in conjunction with the neighborhood’s art spots, much to the delight of passersby. For the present article, we interviewed Hiroaki Sakamoto and Yuriko Saito of the Chokoku-no-Mori Art Foundation, who are supervising the project, about its background and aims.

The hotel BnA_WALL opened in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi area in April 2021. Its most distinctive feature is that all 26 of its guestrooms are works of art. Moreover, the common space that houses the café bar features a huge 6-meter square wall extending from the basement, from which the hotel takes its name. We interviewed Yu Tazawa, the co-founder and CEO of BnA Co., Ltd., which operates BnA_WALL. He explained that BnA_WALL is not just a hotel with art, but also a place that continues to support artists in its own unique way.

This series of articles featuring the voices of various art galleries introduces the unique characteristics of each gallery, including how they meet artists, what they look for in their works, and trends in the art market.

The gallerists featured in this series are directors of galleries established over the past few years in Tokyo that are members of the Contemporary Art Dealers Association of Nippon (CADAN). In this installment, we take a look at HAGIWARA PROJECTS, which opened in 2021 not far from the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. In a distinctive space with bare wood walls, this gallery has hosted solo exhibitions of Japanese and international artists of video, painting, and photography. Among the artists that have been featured are Maiko Jinushi, Miho Dohi, Yuta Hayakawa, Shunsuke Imai, Tamotsu Kido, Nobuhiko Nukata, and Zak Prekop. We hear about the gallery’s director Yukari Hagiwara’s proposals for effective ways to market young artists.

Japanese original text: Takashi Shinkawa

Photo: Shu Nakagawa

In our series of columns “Recommending Audio Guide Use,” we interview audio guide producers and others to delve into how to enjoy “listening” to art.

For the second article in the series, the focus is on Listening Art, an audio guide application that allows people to enjoy exhibitions virtually anywhere via their ears. Released by Acoustiguide Japan Ltd. in 2019, the app attracted attention of art lovers after the COVID-19 pandemic caused many art exhibitions to be canceled or postponed. Beginning in the autumn of 2021, the audio guide from the exhibition “Van Gogh and Gauguin: Reality and Imagination” held in 2016 became available for a limited period until the end of April 2022. This has been dubbed a “legendary audio guide.” But what is the back story to this success? We interviewed Satomi Hoshino, who developed the app, Natsumi Uemura, who produced the audio guide for the “Van Gogh and Gauguin,” and Akane Takahashi, who produced the exhibition “Collecting Van Gogh: Helene Kröller-Müller’s Passion for Vincent’s Art,” which has been held in various locations.

Tokyo Arts and Space Hongo (commonly known as TOKAS Hongo) is a place for the creation and dissemination of a wide variety of expressions that take place during the same era. It hosts exhibitions, performances, and various other projects. Since 2001, this building has served as an art space for many artists, although it was an employment agency when first built in 1928. The exhibition “ACT (Artists Contemporary TOKAS) Vol. 4: Approaching to Alternative Images,” running February 5 – March 21, 2022, offered a unique experience of work set against this historical backdrop. We present a report on Daisuke Nakazawa’s work, which focuses on the building’s history and relives the “employment agency.”

The term “public domain” refers to public intellectual property that is not copyrighted. There are art museums around the world that offer open online access to works in their collections. Here, we highlight works that have entered the public domain and redefine the appeal of such collections.

Audio guides have become a standard feature of art galleries and museums. They make the viewing experience more extravagant and enriching. The devices have become increasingly advanced and popular, with the development of applications that feature popular narrators and actors, allowing viewers to listen to guides without having to visit exhibition venues.

In a new series of columns, “Recommending Audio Guide Use,” we will interview audio guide producers and others to delve into how to enjoy “listening” to art. For the first installment, we asked Acoustiguide Japan Ltd., which produces nearly 50 audio guides a year, about how they make their guides and what goes on behind the scenes in their production.

The “Next Tokyo Discovering Team!” series gives insight on the little-known history and culture of various parts of Tokyo, and introduces the deepest ways of enjoying the city as it continues to evolve creatively. In this installment, we present events unfolding in the Honjo Fukagawa area, located on the east side of the Sumida River.

The area is dotted with popular restaurants, art museums and galleries. It is also a crossroads of old and new cultures that retains a downtown atmosphere, where an art project called Books, Rivers, and Towns has been held since 2020. As we toured the programs scattered around the river town with “books” as a guide, what emerged was the memory of a land that has long been layered since the Edo Period. We interviewed four local residents about how the project was launched.

This is a series of visits to gardens in Tokyo featuring photographs by photographer Norihisa Kushibiki and commentary by Miho Tanaka, curator at the Edo-Tokyo Museum. Rather than daimyo gardens (those commissioned by daimyo feudal lords), which we introduced in this column in the past, Mukojima-Hyakkaen Gardens was created by a merchant and several literati in Edo (today’s Tokyo). The 10,885 square meters garden, lush with wild flowers and grasses, was filled with as much to see as a large-scale garden and with the passion of the people involved.

A series of articles featuring the voices of gallerists. This column introduces the features of each gallery, how to meet artists, what to look for in their works, and trends in the art market.

The gallerists featured in this series are directors of galleries established in the past few years in Tokyo. They belong to the Contemporary Art Dealers Association of Nippon (CADAN).

This time, we visited 4649, founded in 2018 in Sugamo, Toshima-ku, to interview with its three directors. 4649 is an artist-run space gallery owned and operated by the artists themselves. The three, Yuhei Kobayashi, Shogo Shimizu, and Yu Takamizawa, were born in the 1990s. They present works of different media, such as painting and photography, created by themselves. At the same time, they actively introduce younger artists based overseas.

Japanese original text: Takashi Shinkawa

Photo: Shu Nakagawa

Translation: Kae Shigeno