Grand reopening exhibition

Special Exhibition: Weavers of Worlds - A Century of Flux in Japanese Modern / Contemporary Art
MOT Collection: Pleased to meet you. New Acquisitions in recent years

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) will celebrate its Grand Reopening in late March 2019, almost three years after closing to upgrade its equipment and improve its utility as a museum building. The renovation is the first major rehab of the building since the museum’s inauguration in 1995. 

To mark the Grand Reopening, MOT will hold two concurrent exhibitions—one in its special exhibition galleries (three floors) and one in its collection galleries (two floors)—to thoroughly display its collection on a large scale in the entire space of the museum.   

The Special Exhibition will take new perspectives on MOT’s collection to substantiate the special character of its holdings—artworks acquired through exhibitions and investigative research, and archival materials held in the museum library. The MOT Collection exhibition, meanwhile, will focus on the collection’s most recent additions and feature works acquired in recent years.

The collection of MOT consists of some 5,200 works in total. At its core are 3,000 pieces relocated to MOT, upon its opening in 1995, from in Ueno’s Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, a home for exhibitions of contemporaneous art since 1926. An additional 2,200 pieces have been acquired by MOT. Distinguishing the collection are artworks of striking originality that captured attention in each era—works which looked in new directions and broke from conventional lineages of art history. Through exhibits installed throughout the entire museum, this Grand Reopening presentation will comprehensively re-examine the collection at MOT, whose scope extends from avant-garde works of the pre- and postwar years to contemporary works created in this century. To broadly inquire into MOT’s significance as a museum that has examined the artistic endeavors of each successive era will be a valuable undertaking at a time when MOT is embarking anew.

Special Exhibition curators：Seki Naoko, Yabumae Tomoko
MOT Collection curators：Muta Yukihide, Nishikawa Mihoko, Fujii Aki, Chinzei Yoshimi

Organized by
Tokyo Metropolitan Government, 
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture)

Press Contact: NAKAJIMA Mihoko, KUDO Chiako (PR, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)  
E mot-pr@mot-art.jp
T +81-3-5245-1134（Direct） 
F +81-3-5245-1141