A look at upcoming exhibitions and art shows across Tokyo for the month of May. Whether you want to see some traditional Japanese art or a modern exhibit, here’s everything worth checking out.
‘Where Unseen Things Seeps Forth’ Exhibition
UltraSuperNew Kura will host an exhibition with French artists Barbara Penhouët and Bastien Marienne themed around impermanence.
Date & Time
Apr 03-May 08・11:00-19:00・by appointment only except for Saturdays, closed on Sunday and Monday
Price
Free
Location
UltraSuperNew Kura
Shimomura Kanzan, “Yoroboshi (Young blind beggar),” (1915). National Important Cultural Property, Tokyo National Museum, Image: TNM Image Archives (display period: 3/17-4/12).
Shimomura Kanzan: Life, Art and Society
Born into a family of Noh performers and trained as a prodigy in traditional Kano-school techniques, Shimomura Kanzan is a central figure in modern Japanese painting. Along with his mentor Okakura Tenshin and fellow artists like Yokoyama Taikan, he founded the Nihon Bijutsu-in (Japan Art Institute) to redefine what “Japanese style” could mean in a rapidly changing world. Featuring 150 works, the exhibition follows his journey from a young artist in Tokyo to his time studying in Britain, which allowed him to master Western shading techniques.Shimomura’s significance in art history lies in his unique ability to act as a bridge between seemingly opposing worlds — bold yet delicate, his works seamlessly fused a Western atmospheric perspective with the decorativeness of the Rinpa school. Balancing the organic depth of classical Japanese motifs with the precision of Western painting techniques, Shimomura was an artist who preserved and evolved artistic tradition.
Date & Time
Mar 17-May 10・10:00-17:00・Open Until 20:00 Fri & Sat, Closed Mon
Price
Advance ¥1,800 | Door ¥2,000
Location
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
YBA & Beyond: British Art in the 90s from the Tate Collection
One of the most highly-anticipated Tokyo exhibitions of the year, “YBA & Beyond: British Art in the 90s from the Tate Collection” is a must-see show this spring. The transition from the late 80s into the 90s was a volatile time for Britain, and the art world reflected that friction. Following the Thatcher era, a loose collective of artists — now synonymous with the Young British Artists (YBAs) — emerged to challenge artistic norms through bold, experimental practices and an openness to new materials and processes. The exhibition features approximately 100 works by a star-studded line-up, including Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Lubaina Himid and Steve McQueen.
Date & Time
Feb 11-May 11・10:00-18:00・Fri & Sat: Open Until 20:00
Price
Adults: ¥2,300 | College: ¥1,500 | High School: ¥900 | Junior High & Under: Free
Location
The National Art Center, Tokyo
The Korin School: The Irises and Ogata Korin’s Followers
To mark the Nezu Museum’s 85th anniversary, this exhibition puts the spotlight on one of Japan’s most celebrated treasures: the Irises screens by Ogata Korin. Korin was a master of the Rimpa style, an approach to art that functions much like modern graphic design. Instead of trying to make paintings look like realistic photos, Rimpa artists used bold colors, shimmering gold backgrounds and simplified, rhythmic shapes to create a look that feels strikingly contemporary. This show moves beyond just the famous names to show how Korin’s vibrant style was shared and reimagined by a whole circle of talented followers and family members. In the galleries, you’ll see how this aesthetic was not just for walls; it was applied to everything from delicate silk paintings to sturdy ceramic bowls. You can explore the incredibly detailed brushwork of Watanabe Shiko, a close collaborator of Korin, and see the inventive ceramics of Korin’s brother, Kenzan. The exhibition also features rare pieces returning to Japan from the Cleveland Museum of Art, offering a full picture of how these artists transformed simple flowers and landscapes into a bold, decorative language. It’s a chance to see how one man’s vision of beauty shaped an entire movement that continues to define Japanese design today.
Date & Time
Apr 11-May 12・10:00-17:00・Closed Mondays, except May 4. Open until 19:00 from May 5-10
Price
¥800–¥1,800
Location
Nezu Museum
More Info
Same-day tickets: plus 200 yen
Shelton, Connecticut, 1985. from the series: Summertime © Mark Steinmetz
Mark Steinmetz: ‘Summer’s Children’
At his first-ever solo exhibition in Japan, photographer Mark Steinmetz immerses us in quiet, sun-drenched portraits of childhood. Captured during the late 80s and early 90s across North Carolina, Georgia, Massachusetts and beyond, these black-and-white photographs focus on classic pillars of American youth — baseball and summer camp. Steinmetz captured these scenes while in his twenties, drawn to the way children live entirely in the moment. These shots take us back to the slow, wandering pace of a summer before smartphones. Based in Athens, Georgia, Steinmetz earned his MFA from Yale and spent a formative year working with street photographer Garry Winogrand. He is best known for his quiet and restrained depictions of everyday life in the American South, finding profound beauty in the most mundane moments.
Date & Time
Mar 16-May 13・11:00-18:00・Closed Sundays
Price
Free
Location
PGI Gallery
Kobayashi Kiyochika, “Tokyo New Bridge in the Rain” (1876, Meiji 9). Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. © Kobayashi Kiyochika / National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Robert O. Muller Collection, S2003.8.1102.
From Kiyochika to Hasui: Ukiyo-e and Shin-Hanga Woodblock Prints from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
In a historic exchange marking the 250th anniversary of the United States, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art is sending 130 rare woodblock prints and photographs to Japan. Many of these works are part of the world-renowned Robert O. Muller Collection in Washington, D.C. Muller, a pivotal art dealer, spent decades assembling an archive of 4,500 pieces that introduced the Japanese “new print” movement to the American public. The exhibition serves as a tangible record of how American stewardship helped preserve these delicate works during the 20th century. The collection explores the twilight of the woodblock tradition — a period when artists adapted to the rise of photography by experimenting with light and shadow. You can see this evolution in the work of Kobayashi Kiyochika, whose kosen-ga (light-ray paintings) abandoned traditional bold outlines to capture the soft, atmospheric effects of dawn, fire and gaslight. This technical foundation was later refined by Kawase Hasui, who mastered complex over-layering and color gradation to evoke the depth of Japanese landscapes. By placing these prints alongside early Meiji-era photographs, the exhibition illustrates how the two mediums influenced one another.
Date & Time
Feb 19-May 24・10:00-18:00・Fridays until 20:00 | Closed Mondays, except April 6, April 27 and May 18.
Price
¥1,000–¥2,300
Location
Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum
Taro Gomi Picture Book World Exhibition
Explore the world of picture books at the Picture Book World Exhibition featuring Gomi Taro, author and illustrator of over 400 books.
Date & Time
Aug 8, 2025-May 27, 2026・10:00-18:00
Price
Free
Location
Mikka Lirio Ichibankan
More Info
A separate Mikka admission fee is required for other in-house exhibits
Left: Nawa Kohei, PixCell-Deer#74, 2024. Right: PixCell-Deer#72(Aurora), 2022. Installation view, SPRING RISING, Pola Museum of Art, Hakone, Japan, 2025-26. Photo: Ken Kato
Pola Museum of Art: Spring Rising
This exhibition presents works inspired by the landscapes of Hakone and other places along the Tokaido route.
Date & Time
Dec 13, 2025-May 31, 2026・09:00-17:00
Price
¥2,200
Location
Pola Museum of Art
Mundo Pixar Exhibition
The Mundo Pixar exhibition will be coming to Crevia Base Tokyo featuring life-size reproductions of film scenes from Pixar Animation Studios.
Date & Time
Mar 20-May 31・10:00-20:50・Last admission at 19:00, closed on Mondays
Price
starting at ¥3900 for adults
Location
Crevia Base Tokyo
© Nacasa & Partners Inc. / Courtesy of Fondation D’Entreprise Hermès
Andrius Arutiunian: ‘Obol’
This March, Ginza’s Maison Hermès Le Forum presents “Obol,” the first Japanese solo exhibition by artist and composer Andrius Arutiunian. Arutiunian explores the relationship between music and distorted forms, using hypnotic soundscapes and sacred motifs to create installations that are at once mythological and futuristic. The exhibition infuses the gallery space — a glass-encased architectural marvel worth admiring in itself — with a sleek, underground rave-esque aesthetic. It centers on a series of new works inspired by bitumen, a viscous, pitch-black petroleum substance that once held holy significance but is now used for secular purposes. Through this dark material, Arutiunian pays homage to Charon, the mythological ferryman of the dead, scattering obol — ancient Greek silver coins — and serpentine imagery throughout the space.
Date & Time
Feb 20-May 31・11:00-00:00・Closed Wednesdays
Price
Free
Location
Maison Hermès Le Forum
15 untitled works in concrete, 1980–84.
Permanent collection, The Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas. Photo by Florian Holzherr, courtesy The Chinati Foundation.
Donald Judd Art © 2026 Judd Foundation/ARS, NY/JASPAR, Tokyo.
Judd | Marfa
Tracing the radical career of Donald Judd (1928-1994), this show dives into how a painter from Missouri ended up redefining 20th-century art through his massive, three-dimensional “stacks” and boxes. It centers on his big move from the New York art scene to the desert of Marfa, Texas, where he turned old buildings into permanent homes for his work. For Judd, art wasn’t just something you hung on a wall. It was about the entire space it lived in — a philosophy that still shakes up the worlds of architecture and design today. Mixing his early 1950s paintings with his famous minimalist structures, the exhibition gives a behind-the-scenes look at Judd’s obsession with spatial integrity through personal drawings, videos and plans. Visitors can also witness Judd’s long-standing connection to Japan, through the section documenting his 1978 show at Watari-um, organized by museum founder Shizuko Watari.
Date & Time
Feb 15-Jun 07・11:00-19:00・Closed on Mondays
Price
¥1,300–¥1,500
Location
Watari-um
W. Eugene Smith, “Untitled,” from the series “As from My Window I Sometimes Glance…,” c.1957-59. Collection of Tokyo Photographic Art Museum ©2026 The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith.
W. Eugene Smith and New York: The Loft Era
A towering figure in 20th-century American photography, W. Eugene Smith produced a body of work that redefined the impact of a single image. While Smith is best known for his assignments as a World War II correspondent for Life magazine, his career actually traces a much broader technical evolution. Venturing beyond traditional news reporting, he was a pioneer of the photo essay — a format that uses a sequence of images and short text to build a complex story. Following his work from the 1940s to later projects like Minamata, the exhibition highlights Smith’s effort to fuse raw journalism with deliberate artistic composition. A major part of the collection covers Smith’s transition away from mainstream news after 1954, specifically his years living in a Manhattan loft. This space became a creative crossroads for jazz legends like Thelonious Monk and artists such as Salvador Dalí. During this era, Smith’s style shifted: he began using the camera as a tool for artistic exploration rather than as a recording device. Capturing the atmospheric, late-night jam sessions that unfolded around him, Smith moved beyond the conventions of his earlier work.
Date & Time
Mar 17-Jun 07・10:00-18:00・Open Until 20:00 Thurs & Fri | Closed Mon
Price
¥350–¥700
Location
Tokyo Photographic Art Museum
Sanrio Exhibition: The Beginning of Kawaii
Mori Arts Center Gallery will hold a special exhibition celebrating 60 years of the Sanrio brand, kawaii culture and over 200 characters.
Date & Time
Apr 09-Jun 21・10:00-18:00・Saturdays and public holidays: 10:00 – 20:00, last admission 30 minutes before closing
Price
Adults: ¥2800 | High school, junior high and elementary school students: ¥1200
Location
Mori Arts Center Gallery
Mathilde Denize, “Contours” (2026). Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.
Mathilde Denize: Time and Light
French artist Mathilde Denize brings a tactile, physical energy to her first Japanese solo exhibition at Perrotin Tokyo. Known for a process that involves cutting up her old canvases and sewing them back together, Denize treats painting as a form of construction. In her new series, Contours, she moves away from using outside objects like leather or shells to focus on the paint itself, building her surfaces using pigments salvaged from film sets and advertising shoots, layering hazy pinks, golden yellows and rich purples to create a sense of history. The structural thinking behind these works echoes the ideas of Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé, who treated words like physical objects — placing them on a page to fragment the reader’s pace. Denize applies this to the gallery itself, hanging her canvases in a single horizontal line to create a rhythm that feels like a musical score. This approach also connects to the modernism of painter Sonia Delaunay, who used color relationships to create a visual beat. Rather than simply reenacting these historical styles, Denize engages with the questions they left unfinished.
Date & Time
Mar 24-Jun 27・11:00-19:00・Closed Sundays & Mondays
Price
Free
Location
Perrotin Tokyo
Yokai Immersive Experience Exhibition Tokyo
Warehouse Terrada will host an immersive exhibit inspired by the monsters/spirits of Japanese folklore, combining art with special effects.
Date & Time
Mar 27-Jun 28・~20:00・last entry at 19:30; The final day (June 28) is open until 17:00 (final entrance 16:30)
Price
adults: ¥2600, seniors: ¥2500, university and high school students: ¥1800, junior high school students and under: ¥800,
Location
Warehouse Terrada
More Info
Guests who present a disability certificate can get a discounted ticket
Heisei Ren-Ai Exhibition
Roppongi Museum’s new Heisei romance exhibition will explore the nostalgic after-school days of the past, with over 3000 displayed items.
Date & Time
Apr 07-Jun 28・Monday to Thursday 10:00-18:00 (last entry at 17:30) | Friday to Sunday (and during Golden Week): 10:00-20:00 (last entry at 19:30)
Price
General: ¥2200 | Junior high and high school students: ¥1800 | Elementary school students: ¥1300
Location
Roppongi Museum
More Info
Guests who present a disability certificate can get a discounted ticket
Invitation from Hogwarts at Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo
The Making of Harry Potter presents “Invitation from Hogwarts,” a limited-time experience running from March 18 to September 6, 2026.
Date & Time
Mar 18-Sep 06・08:30-19:00
Price
¥6,300
Location
Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo
Rina Banerjee, “A woman must keep moving…” (2022). Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.
Rina Banerjee: “You made me leave home…
Stepping into Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo feels like entering a series of mystical, layered environments built from an extraordinary array of found objects. Indian-American artist Rina Banerjee gathers items from across the globe — such as ostrich eggs, vintage glass chandeliers, copper threads and medicinal powders — and weaves them into sculptures that feel both ancient and modern. While her work directly confronts the legacies of colonialism, she does so through a lens of humor and striking beauty, creating a space where the viewer is simultaneously charmed and challenged. This exhibition, which marks the 20th anniversary of Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo and a decade of the Fondation’s international “Hors-les-murs” program, features 19 works that explore the fluid nature of identity. A highlight of the show is a monumental installation inspired by Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in Eighty Days, featuring a massive dome from which a cascade of objects is suspended. The exhibition also features Banerjee’s 2025 painting series, which integrates South Asian motifs and iconography to create female figures that echo the presence of Hindu goddesses.
Date & Time
Mar 19-Sep 13・12:00-20:00
Price
Free
Location
Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo
Ron Mueck Exhibition
Ron Mueck, a contemporary artist, will hold an exhibition at the Mori Art Museum with figurative sculptures that reflect life and mortality.
Date & Time
Apr 29-Sep 23・10:00-22:00・Tuesdays: 10:00-17:00 | Open until 22:00 on May 5, August 11 and September 22 | Admission until 30 minutes before closing
Price
Adults: ¥2500 | University and high school students: ¥1500 | Seniors: ¥2000 | Junior high school students and under: free
Location
Mori Art Museum
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