Anti-Action: Artist-Women’s Challenges and Responses in Postwar Japan

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (MOMAT) will host the exhibition Anti-Action: Artist-Women’s Challenges and Responses in Postwar Japan Tuesday, December 16, 2025, to Sunday, February 8, 2026. 

This exhibition reexamines the creative activities of women artists in the 1950s and ’60s based on the keyword of “anti-action” in an effort to reinterpret Japanese modern and contemporary art history.

During this albeit short period, artist-women received a great deal of attention for their work in the field of avant-garde art. This was underpinned by an international abstract art movement called Art Informel (“unformed art”), which flourished in the West and arrived in Japan via France, and criticism related to the trend. On reflection, however, Art Informel proved to be little more than a passing “whirlwind,” the formal concept of “Action Painting” was imported from the U.S., and artist-women were excluded as a subject of criticism. Critics, the majority of whom were men, embraced the concept of “action” with its associations of boldness and force — qualities culturally coded as masculine. This resulted in a reassertion of traditional gender hierarchies. In analyzing this chain of events in her 2019 book Anti-Action: Post-war Japanese Art and Women Artists, Nakajima Izumi highlights the activities of women artists who reacted to the “action” era in other ways, and suggests “anti-action” as a term to describe this trend.

With anti-action as a starting point for reinterpreting art history from the perspective of gender studies, this exhibition introduces artists who were easily mysticized or alienated from the historical narrative. In addition to Kusama Yayoi, Tanaka Atsuko, and Fukushima Hideko, who are the central focus of Nakajima’s book, we present some 120 works by a total of 14 artists, based on the body of prior research and surveys conducted for this exhibition. This exhibition will not only serve to disseminate recent scholarly developments in contemporary art history to a wider public, but also provide an occasion for viewers to reflect more deeply on how artworks and their critical reception are shaped, interpreted, and valued.

The exhibition catalog will include essays by Nakajima and curators, as well as an interview with art historian Griselda Pollock, a leading authority in gender studies.

Exhibiting artists
Akana Keiko (1924–1998), Akutagawa (Madokoro) Saori (1924–1966), Enomoto Kazuko (1930– ), Emi Kinuko (1923–2015), Kusama Yayoi (1929– ), Shiraga Fujiko (1928–2015), Tada Minami (1924–2014), Tanaka Atsuko (1932–2005), Tanaka Tazuko (1913–2015), Tabe Mitsuko (1933–2024), Fukushima Hideko (1927–1997), Miyawaki Aiko (1929–2014), Mōri Mami (1926–2022), Yamazaki Tsuruko (1925–2019).

Organized by
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and The Asahi Shimbun

Exhibition tours
October 7–November 30, 2025, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art
February 28–May 6, 2026, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art (tentative)

Press inquiries
antiaction@ypcpr.com