The National Art Center, Tokyo, will host Tate Britain – YBA & BEYOND: 90s British Art That Changed the World from February 11 to May 11, 2026. The exhibition offers a comprehensive look at British art in the 1990s, showcasing around 100 works by 60 artists and highlighting the era’s global impact on the art world.
Visitors will see works by experimental artists who emerged during the Thatcher era, including Damien Hirst, Julian Opie, Lubaina Himid, Steve McQueen, Tracey Emin, and Wolfgang Tillmans. The exhibition explores themes such as popular culture, personal narratives, and societal change, featuring diverse media from painting and sculpture to photography, video, and installation.
The show emphasizes the “Young British Artists” (YBAs), a generation that actively redefined artistic materials and presentation methods, drawing international attention to the UK art scene in the 1990s. It also offers insight into the decade’s revolutionary movements in art, music, and fashion.
Tate Britain, one of the UK’s national museums, manages the country’s collection of British art from 1500 onward, as well as modern and contemporary works from around the world. Tate operates four museums, including Tate Modern, which opened in 2000 in a converted power station on the Thames and is the world’s most visited museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art.
We are delighted to present this exhibition in Japan, a country with which the British art scene had close ties in the 1990s. In the course of planning the exhibition, we have been able to reaffirm the many links between our two countries, with many artists showing their work in Japan and drawing inspiration for their work from Japan. It was a very meaningful and fulfilling experience to delve into a period of British history beyond the conventional framework of art history, and to depict the activities and achievements of artists in various parts of the UK as a single story. We hope that visitors were able to sense the connections between regions and the atmosphere of that era, which was full of change and creativity.
After the Tokyo exhibition, the exhibition will travel to the Kyocera Museum of Art in Kyoto from June 2026.
YBA & BEYOND: British Art in the 90s from the Tate Collection
Tokyo Exhibition
Dates: Wednesday, February 11 – Monday, May 11, 2026
Venue: The National Art Center, Tokyo (7-22-2 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo)
Organizers: The National Art Center, Tokyo; Tate Britain; Sony Music Entertainment; Asahi Shimbun
General Inquiries: 050-5541-8600 (Hello Dial)
Tour Information
Kyoto Exhibition
Dates: Wednesday, June 3 – Sunday, September 6, 2026
Venue: Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art (124 Okazaki Enshoji-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto)
Organizers: Tate Britain; Sony Music Entertainment; ABC TV; Kyodo Entertainment; Kyoto Shimbun; FM802 / FM COCOLO; Kyoto City
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