Kaihō: Japanese Women Artists after 1945

In autumn 2026, Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean presents the first exhibition in Europe dedicated to women artists from Japan, spanning the period from the postwar era to the turn of the twenty-first century. Bringing together works by pioneering figures from several generations, it examines their contributions to the global artistic landscape while offering a fresh perspective on a crucial yet often overlooked chapter in art history, revealing the important continuities between modern and contemporary practices.

Focusing on a period of significant social change, Kaihō: Japanese Women Artists after 1945 explores radical modes of artistic expression that emerged in Japan and its global community across Asia, Europe, United States and Brazil. Featuring works by 39 artists, the exhibition traces dynamic exchanges and transnational trajectories, unsettling fixed notions of national identity and challenging Western-centric art histories.

Drawing from the artists’ personal lives, creative resilience and activism, the exhibition brings together over 120 works by Atsuko Tanaka, Mao Ishikawa, Ruth Asawa, Yoko Ono, Fujiko Nakaya, Tomie Ohtake, Yoshiko Shimada, Mariko Mori and Chiharu Shiota, among many others—some of which have rarely, if ever, been shown outside of Japan. 

Forming a prelude to the exhibition, Saori Akutagawa’s rare and striking 1955 portraits from her Women series illuminate the hopes, tensions and transformations of postwar Japan, a moment when the emergence of new democratic aspirations created expanded opportunities for women artists. The first chapter, Witnessing History, opens with the exceptional loan of a 1950 Hiroshima Panel by Toshi and Iri Maruki, presented in dialogue with subsequent generations of artists—Mao Ishikawa, Taeko Tomiyama, Yoshiko Shimada—who confronted the entangled histories of gender, war, imperialism and national memory.

As Japan experienced rapid industrialisation, modernisation and economic growth during the 1950s and 1960s, the second chapter, New Abstraction, stages a remarkable ensemble of Atsuko Tanaka’s large paintings of concentric circles from the 1960s evoking electrical currents and interconnected circuits. Using abstraction to rethink the relationship between humanity, industry and utopian imaginaries, a presentation of metal sculptures by Tsuruko Yamazaki and Minami Tada are placed in dialogue with the transnational abstract practices of Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo and Shizuko Yoshikawa in Zurich. Emerging from the Fluxus exchanges between Tokyo and New York, the third chapter, Do It Yourself, foregrounds participation, experimentation and collective interaction through instruction-based works and installations by Yoko Ono, Mieko Shiomi and Takako Saito. 

Self-Discovery looks at the ways in which artists such as Tāri Itō, Sayako Kishimoto and Mako Idemitsu used photography, performance, video and installation to communicate changing ideas about gender, femininity and cultural identity in Japan and beyond. The exhibition concludes with Environmental Consciousness, focusing on artists engaging with ecological perception and the interdependence of living systems. Moving between media technologies, industrial residues, atmospheric environments and earth-based processes, the chapter establishes a dialogue between Shigeko Kubota’s media fountain Niagara Falls I (1985–87), Toshiko Takaezu’s ceramic Moon series and Yayoi Kusama’s early Infinity Room: Fireflies on the Water (2000).

Kaihō: Japanese Women Artists after 1945 features significant loans from international institutions including the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; MoMA, New York; and Tate, London and is accompanied by a landmark publication by Phaidon in association with Mudam Luxembourg. This fully illustrated reference book features an introductory essay, a section on each participating artist and thematic essays with contributions by over 30 major authors including Hiroko Hagiwara, Megumi Kitahara, Reiko Kokatsu, Izumi Nakajima and Midori Yoshimoto.

Kaihō: Japanese Women Artists after 1945 is curated by Florence Ostende, Director of Artistic Programmes and Content, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and previously Head of the Artistic Department, Mudam Luxembourg, with Yurika Imaseki, Research Associate, and Anaël Daoud, Assistant Curator, Mudam Luxembourg. The partner institutions gratefully acknowledge the advisory guidance of Reiko Kokatsu, art historian and curator. The exhibition is designed by New York-based Columbia University faculty Ibrahim Kombarji. 

Kaihō, a Japanese term meaning “breaking free,” honours the personal, political and conceptual forces of a time and place, while reflecting Mudam’s commitment to broadening established narratives.

The exhibition is organised by Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in collaboration with Lenbachhaus Munich March 20, 2027–September 5, 2027) and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (October 8, 2027–March 5, 2028).

Participating artists: Saori Akutagawa, Ruth Asawa, BuBu de la Madeleine, Akiko Fujita, Hideko Fukushima, Chiharu Shiota, Mako Idemitsu, Mao Ishikawa, Ishiuchi Miyako, Tāri Itō, Yuki Katsura, Sayako Kishimoto, Shigeko Kubota, Yayoi Kusama, Shōko Maemoto, Toshi Maruki, Yōko Matsumoto, Kyōko Michishita, Seiko Mikami, Kimiyo Mishima, Aiko Miyawaki, Kazuko Miyamoto, Mariko Mori, Nobuho Nagasawa, Fujiko Nakaya, Yūko Nasaka, Machiko Ogawa, Tomie Ohtake, Yoko Ono, Takako Saito, Yoshiko Shimada, Mieko Shiomi, Mitsuko Tabe, Minami Tada, Toshiko Takaezu, Atsuko Tanaka, Taeko Tomiyama, Tsuruko Yamazaki and Shizuko Yoshikawa.

The exhibition is made possible through the generous support of lead supporter SMBC, with special support from the Ishibashi Foundation, the Bagri Foundation and The Japan Foundation, and air transport provided by Cargolux.