5 Exhibitions to See In Japan This Week: Rembrandt’s Innovative Printmaking, Yuko Mohri’s Venice Exhibition Recomposed
From major museum shows to gallery highlights, ARTnews JAPAN editors select the must-see exhibitions now on view across Japan. This article is also available in Japanese.
- 1. Ryuichi Sakamoto & Tin Drum | KAGAMI+ (VS.)
- 2. “Strata in Gestation” curated by Yoshitomo Nara (KOSAKU KANECHIKA)
- 3. Flowers of Memory (KOTARO NUKAGA Tennnoz)
- 4. Rembrandt the Etcher: His Challenges and His Impact (The National Museum of Western Art)
- 5. Yuko Mohri: Recompose A Homecoming Exhibition from Japan Pavilion of the 60th Venice Biennale (Yokohama Museum of Art)
1. Ryuichi Sakamoto & Tin Drum | KAGAMI+ (VS.)
Ryuichi Sakamoto, Reconstructed in Mixed Reality
KAGAMI, which reconstructs Ryuichi Sakamoto’s piano performance as three-dimensional footage for a mixed reality (MR) experience, is currently on view in Japan for the first time, at VS. in Osaka. The project was produced by Sakamoto together with Tin Drum, the American creative studio led by Todd Eckert, over the final four years of the composer’s life. It premiered at The Shed in New York in 2023, before touring cities including London, Taipei, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
Visitors wear headsets that let ambient sound through as they watch a performance by Sakamoto, rendered through the studio’s proprietary three-dimensional imaging technology. Sakamoto’s figure emerges at a grand piano, his playing cued to visual sequences by Tin Drum that unfold across the surrounding space. The exhibition also includes footage, photographs, production materials, and a fragrance blended by Sakamoto himself. Combining music, imagery, and spatial staging, the project offers a new format for experiencing Sakamoto’s work.
Ryuichi Sakamoto & Tin Drum | KAGAMI+
Dates: Saturday, June 27–Monday, October 12, 2026 (national holiday)
Venue: VS. (Grand Green Osaka, Umekita Park North Park), 6-86 Ofukacho, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-0011
Hours: 10 a.m.–8 p.m. (timed-entry tickets)
Closed: Mondays (or the following weekday when Monday falls on a national holiday or consecutive holidays)
2. “Strata in Gestation” curated by Yoshitomo Nara (KOSAKU KANECHIKA)
Tracing Clay: Four Artists Selected by Yoshitomo Nara
Curated by Yoshitomo Nara, the group exhibition brings together roughly 30 works by four artists — Eiji Uematsu, Takuro Kuwata, Chinoko Sakamoto, and Masaomi Yasunaga — centered on ceramics, a medium the gallery has continually championed. This marks Nara's first time curating a show at the gallery.
In a text written for the exhibition, Nara says he chose artists whose work centers on form — artists who embed in their pieces the traces left by earth, fire, time, and chance. The show juxtaposes the four artists’ approaches, each of whom folds the raw material and the act of firing directly into the work’s expression. Across a range of pieces — from works that expand the concept of the vessel to large-scale, organically shaped sculptures — visitors can trace the perspective on form that Nara identified in them.
“Strata in Gestation” curated by Yoshitomo Nara
Dates: Saturday, June 27–Saturday, August 8, 2026
Venue: KOSAKU KANECHIKA Tennoz, TERRADA ART COMPLEX I 5F, 1-33-10 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo
Hours: 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
Closed: Sundays, Mondays, and national holidays
3. Flowers of Memory (KOTARO NUKAGA Tennnoz)
Where Mirror and Painting Converge
New York-based artist Nir Hod presents his second solo exhibition at KOTARO NUKAGA, following 2022’s ”Echo of Memories”. This show centers on a new series, 100 Years Is Not Enough, its title drawn from a thought the artist arrived at during time spent in nature during the pandemic: that a hundred years isn’t enough to take in the beauty of being alive.
The works are made using Hod’s signature technique: layering chrome over painted canvas, then subjecting the surface to chemical reactions involving acid, ammonia, and fire. The resulting silver mirror is deliberately peeled back to expose the color hidden beneath, and further color is added on top, building the work up in layers. While the series gestures toward Monet's Water Lilies, it is not a mere appropriation of his work — rather, a reconstruction of the image as a landscape transformed by memory. The mirrored surface reflects viewers’ own likenesses, folding the relationship between the work and the space of viewing into the piece itself.
Flowers of Memory
Dates: Saturday, July 4–Saturday, August 8, 2026
Venue: KOTARO NUKAGA Tennoz, TERRADA Art Complex II 1F, 1-32-8 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo
Hours: 11:30 a.m.–6 p.m.
Closed: Sundays, Mondays, and national holidays
4. Rembrandt the Etcher: His Challenges and His Impact (The National Museum of Western Art)
How Rembrandt’s Etchings Shaped the Artists After Him
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), the leading painter of 17th-century Holland, expanded the possibilities of printmaking, chiefly through etching. Combining the technique with drypoint and burin, he pursued a range of approaches to achieve rich compositions built from light, shadow, and delicate line work — images that went on to shape the history of printmaking. Organized jointly by the Rembrandt House Museum and the National Museum of Western Art, this exhibition surveys his print oeuvre and its influence on later generations.
The exhibition brings together some 130 works, drawn primarily from the two museums’ collections along with private holdings. Alongside key Rembrandt prints such as The Hundred Guilder Print and A Scholar in His Study (Faust), it includes prints and related works by Goya, Whistler, Redon, Matisse, and Picasso. Through these works, the show traces how Rembrandt’s techniques and modes of expression were passed down and developed by artists across different eras.
Rembrandt the Etcher: His Challenges and His Impact
Dates: Tuesday, July 7–Wednesday, September 23, 2026 (national holiday)
Venue: The National Museum of Western Art, 7-7 Ueno-koen, Taito-ku, Tokyo
Hours: 9:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. (until 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays; admission ends 30 minutes before closing)
Closed: Mondays (except August 10 and September 21)
5. Yuko Mohri: Recompose A Homecoming Exhibition from Japan Pavilion of the 60th Venice Biennale (Yokohama Museum of Art)
Recomposing the Venice Exhibition in Yokohama
Yuko Mohri’s solo exhibition “Compose”, first presented at the Japan Pavilion of the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, comes to the Yokohama Museum of Art as “Recompose”. Mohri has long rendered invisible phenomena — magnetism, gravity, water, air currents — visible through installations that combine everyday objects with mechanical devices. Taking the Venice presentation as its starting point, this show reconfigures the work for the museum's own space.
The exhibition consists of two series: Moré Moré (Leaky), an installation series inspired by water leaks in subway stations, and Decomposition, which converts the changing moisture levels of rotting fruit into sound and light. Sharing water’s circulation and transformation as a common thread, the works let the unpredictable movements generated by everyday materials and natural phenomena ripple through the entire space.
Yuko Mohri: Recompose A Homecoming Exhibition from Japan Pavilion of the 60th Venice Biennale
Dates: Friday, July 24–Monday, November 23, 2026 (national holiday)
Venue: Yokohama Museum of Art, Gallery 9, 3-4-1 Minatomirai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Hours: 10 a.m.–6 p.m. (until 8 p.m. on November 21 and 22; admission ends 30 minutes before closing)
Closed: Thursdays (except August 13, September 24, and November 19)
