Best Exhibitions Starting in August 2025
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Tokyo Art Beat presents a selection of the best exhibitions opening in August 2025. Bookmark the exhibitions on the TAB website or TAB app and never miss the openings and closings.
- 【Tokyo】MOT’s 30th Anniversary Exhibition Choreographies of Everyday (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)
- 【Tokyo】TOP 30th Anniversary Pedro Costa Innervisions (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum)
- 【Tokyo】Tsutaya Juzaburo and the Chronicles of Publishers (Ota Memorial Museum of Art)
- 【Tokyo】The Porcelain Art of Contemporary Meissen: Stories Painted by the Master Heinz Werner (Sen-Oku Hakukokan Museum Tokyo)
- 【Chiba】Recorded Futures Relived: CCMA and Contemporary Art (Chiba City Museum of Art)
- 【Chiba】Fumiyo Kono Exhibition (Sakura City Museum of Art)
- 【Osaka】Sakamotocommon Osaka 1970/2025/Osaka/Ryuichi Sakamoto (VS.)
- 【Hyogo】Kobe Rokko Meets Art 2025 Beyond (Rokko Garden Terrace)
- 【Kagawa & Okayama】Setouchi Triennale 2025 Summer (Takamatsu Port, etc.)
- 【Kagawa】Shinro Ohtake: Retina (Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art)
- 【Kagawa】Ishida Takashi: Between Tableau and Window (Takamatsu Art Museum)
- 【Kagawa】Tsuyoshi Ozawa "The Seven Wonders of Sanuki" (The Kagawa Museum)
【Tokyo】MOT’s 30th Anniversary Exhibition Choreographies of Everyday (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)
For its 30th anniversary, MOT turns the museum into a stage. The curators pose a provocative question: in a fragmented, plural society, what role can an institution play? Expect installations, performances, and participatory works that transform gallery walls into spaces of encounter—alive and unpredictable.
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Schedule: August 23 – November 24
【Tokyo】TOP 30th Anniversary Pedro Costa Innervisions (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum)
The first solo exhibition in Japan of Portuguese visionary filmmaker Pedro Costa. On view are works such as Horse Money (2014), alongside the museum’s collection of photographs and films that trace the history of image-making.
Venue: Tokyo Photographic Art Museum
Schedule: August 28 – December 7
【Tokyo】Tsutaya Juzaburo and the Chronicles of Publishers (Ota Memorial Museum of Art)
Behind every ukiyo-e masterpiece lies a risk-taking publisher. This deep dive into Edo-era print culture celebrates Tsutaya Jūzaburo—Utamaro and Sharaku’s visionary backer—alongside other moguls of the woodblock printing world.
Venue: Ota Memorial Museum of Art
Schedule: August 30 – November 3
【Tokyo】The Porcelain Art of Contemporary Meissen: Stories Painted by the Master Heinz Werner (Sen-Oku Hakukokan Museum Tokyo)
This exhibition showcases masterpieces by Heinz Werner—an eminent figure in contemporary Meissen porcelain. Through his dreamlike designs, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to experience the essence of Meissen’s porcelain artistry.
Venue: Sen-Oku Hakukokan Museum Tokyo
Schedule: August 30 – November 3
【Chiba】Recorded Futures Relived: CCMA and Contemporary Art (Chiba City Museum of Art)
To mark its 30th anniversary, the museum presents a retrospective of its contemporary art collection. On view are about 180 works spanning postwar to contemporary art, by artists such as Yayoi Kusama, On Kawara, Atsuko Tanaka, Tatsuo Kawaguchi, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and others.
Venue: Chiba City Museum of Art
Schedule: August 2 – October 19
【Chiba】Fumiyo Kono Exhibition (Sakura City Museum of Art)
The first large-scale exhibition of manga artist Fumiyo Kono (creator of In This Corner of the World). Over 500 works chart Kono’s journey from whimsical 4-panel strips to deeply human wartime stories—each page steeped in her distinct warmth.
Venue: Sakura City Museum of Art
Schedule: August 2 – October 2
【Osaka】Sakamotocommon Osaka 1970/2025/Osaka/Ryuichi Sakamoto (VS.)
An homage to the Ryuichi Sakamoto’s formative encounter with Expo ’70. Acoustic sculptures from the original fair are resurrected alongside Sakamoto’s own sonic explorations—a rare chance to hear history resonate.
Venue: VS.
Schedule: August 30 – September 27
【Hyogo】Kobe Rokko Meets Art 2025 Beyond (Rokko Garden Terrace)
An annual contemporary art festival, held in the natural setting of Mount Rokko, celebrates its 16th edition. Sixty artists transform Rokko’s ridges and gardens into an open-air museum, each work in intimate conversation with the landscape.
Venue: Rokko Garden Terrace
Schedule: August 23 – November 30
【Kagawa & Okayama】Setouchi Triennale 2025 Summer (Takamatsu Port, etc.)
In its 15th year, the Setouchi Triennale spans spring, summer, and autumn sessions over 107 days. Featuring 63 artists/groups from 21 countries and regions—including participants from New Zealand and Sweden such as Sarah Hudson, who represented New Zealand and won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale—alongside exhibitions in eight local museums.
Venue: Takamatsu Port, etc.
Schedule: August 1 – August 31
【Kagawa】Shinro Ohtake: Retina (Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art)
Shinro Ohtake’s restless vision roves across media, scales, and time. Here, the “retina” is both eye and archive—a filter through which raw experience is refracted into sprawling assemblages.
Venue: Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art
Schedule: August 1 – November 24
【Kagawa】Ishida Takashi: Between Tableau and Window (Takamatsu Art Museum)
Takashi Ishida’s line dances between animation and stillness, between narrative and the frozen moment. Eighty works trace a decade-long return from moving image to the meditative surface of the canvas.
Venue: Takamatsu Art Museum
Schedule: August 8 – October 5
【Kagawa】Tsuyoshi Ozawa "The Seven Wonders of Sanuki" (The Kagawa Museum)
Part folklore, part satire—Ozawa rummages through Kagawa’s historical and artistic treasures, recombining them into wry, uncanny tales. An exhibition that delights in the slippery border between myth and reality.
Venue: The Kagawa Museum
Schedule: August 9 – October 13
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