5 Exhibitions to See In Japan This Week: Suzuko Yamada’s Polyphonic Architecture, Margaret Lee’s Fragmented Landscapes

1. Fort/da Asami Shoji + Yuichi Higashionna (Heimlichkeit Nikai)

Stepping Outside the White Cube

A two-person exhibition by Asami Shoji and Yuichi Higashionna is currently on view at Heimlichkeit Nikai. Shoji uses imagery emerging from the body as her starting point, employing the conventions of painting on canvas and window glass as support to describe the world. Higashionna, sensing something “uncanny” in the interior furnishings once found in every Japanese home, creates works inspired by these objects.

Held in a venue where traces of daily life and layers of time remain vividly present, the exhibition unfolds across multiple media—including tableaux, drawings, video, and lighting—and features paintings applied directly to the window glass by Shoji, forming an installation that envelops the building itself. The works resonate with the history and atmosphere of the space, and rather than simply “viewing an exhibition,” visitors will find themselves stepping into a place imbued with someone's memories and lingering presence.

Fort/da Asami Shoji + Yuichi Higashionna
Dates: Friday, April 3 – Monday, June 29
Venue: Heimlichkeit Nikai (2F, 6-13-3 Omori-kita, Ota-ku, Tokyo)
Hours: 11:00 – 17:00
Closed: Tuesdays to Thursdays

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2. Georges Rouault: Memories of the Artist’s Studio (Panasonic Shiodome Museum of Art)

Tracing the Master at Work

Since its opening, Panasonic Shiodome Museum of Art has continuously collected works by Georges Rouault (1871–1958), one of the leading French painters of the twentieth century. This exhibition presents a comprehensive overview of the collection, incorporating early works and related materials recently acquired by the museum. Tracing Rouault's trajectory from his early period—shaped by the influence of his teacher Gustave Moreau—to the religious subjects of his later years, the show illuminates his artistic development.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a partial reconstruction of Rouault's studio, realized in cooperation with the Fondation Georges Rouault in Paris. The desk and tools actually used by Rouault in his final years are on view, evoking the “sanctuary” of his practice—a space into which even his family could not easily enter. By extending our gaze beyond the finished works to the environment and physical conditions in which they were made, the exhibition offers a more dimensional encounter with Rouault's art. Timed-entry reservations are required on weekends and public holidays.

Georges Rouault: Memories of the Artist’s Studio
Dates: Saturday, April 11 – Sunday, June 21
Venue: Panasonic Shiodome Museum of Art (Panasonic Tokyo Shiodome Bldg. 4F, 1-5-1 Higashi-Shimbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo)
Hours: 10:00 – 18:00 (until 20:00 on June 5, June 19, and June 20; last admission 30 minutes before closing)
Closed: Wednesdays (except June 17)

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3. Suzuko Yamada Exhibition: parallel tunes (TOTO GALLERY・MA)

Architecture as Polyphony

Suzuko Yamada’s first solo exhibition is currently on view at TOTO GALLERY・MA. Yamada came to architecture through landscape design, and after working at Sou Fujimoto Architects, she studied architecture at the graduate school of Tokyo University of the Arts. While still a graduate student, she received the top prize at “Arts & Life: A House for Living,” an exhibition organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. Since establishing her own practice, she has designed houses such as “daita2019” and “miyazaki,” along with art installations like “outline bar,” developing works that expand the boundaries of architecture. Her honors include the Grand Prize at the 3rd Architectural Design Association of Nippon (ADAN) Award, among many others. In recent years, she has extended her practice into public space, designing the rest area at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan and YB Park, the Yabu Civic Plaza.

For this exhibition, Yamada treats the space of TOTO Gallery・Ma as an “environment,” giving form to a world in which nature, living beings, and landscape resonate together in complex melodies. The “architecture in which many songs sound at once,” as Yamada describes it, is not a controlled, unified beauty of melody but rather a state of polyphony—one in which each element asserts its own presence, collides with others, and reverberates to generate new tonalities.

Suzuko Yamada Exhibition: parallel tunes
Dates: Thursday, April 16 – Sunday, July 12
Venue: TOTO GALLERY・MA (TOTO Nogizaka Building 3F, 1-24-3 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo)
Hours: 11:00 – 18:00
Closed: Mondays and national holidays

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4. Margaret Lee “All to Bits” (MISAKO & ROSEN)

Fragmented Landscapes of Feeling

Incorporating newspaper as material and interweaving geometric composition with unrestrained gesture, Margaret Lee moves fluidly between painting and collage, where abstraction meets physicality. In recent years, she has continued to exhibit in New York—where she is based—as well as in Taipei and Milwaukee, drawing out layers of unstable emotion and memory through fragmented imagery.

The new works presented at Misako and Rosen extend collapsing structures and uneven rhythms across the entire space. Rather than offering a reconstructed order, the works seem to embrace the very condition of ongoing disintegration. Their vivid pinks and the light, airy texture of paper fragments evoke a flurry of cherry blossoms at the end of spring, while beneath that surface lingers a sense of fragility and instability.

Margaret Lee “All To Bits”
Dates: Saturday, April 25 – Sunday, May 31
Venue: MISAKO & ROSEN (3-27-6 Kita-Otsuka, Toshima-ku, Tokyo)
Hours: 12:00 – 18:00
Closed: Mondays and Tuesdays

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5. Gaudí: Windows on the Future（21_21 DESIGN SIGHT）

A Window into Gaudí’s Thought

The architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) designed a remarkable diversity of windows, free from convention. His work was grounded in a singular architectural philosophy and an insatiable curiosity, paired with an inventive sense of form and mechanism and an extensive command of artistic and technical knowledge. These qualities were sustained by close collaboration with a wide range of craftsmen and partners. YKK AP Inc., a major Japanese manufacturer of architectural products like windows and sashes, has long conducted research into Gaudí's architecture and his windows.

Marking the centenary of Gaudí’s death in 2026, YKK AP presents this exhibition on “Gaudí's Windows”　at two venues: Palau Güell in Barcelona—a UNESCO World Heritage site designed by Gaudí—and Tokyo. The Tokyo presentation introduces the knowledge and research YKK AP has accumulated on Gaudí’s windows through panels, models, documentary footage, and books. Conveying the rich world of Gaudí’s windows from multiple perspectives, the exhibition invites viewers to consider what windows might become in the future.

Gaudí: Windows on the Future
Dates: Saturday, May 16 – Sunday, July 12
Venue: 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT Gallery 3 (9-7-6 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo)
Hours: 10:00–19:00
Closed: May 26, June 23

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