Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989-2010

This exhibition examines the practices of more than 50 artists from Japan and abroad, exploring art that emerged in Japan and how Japanese cultural expression inspired the world between 1989, when the Showa era (1926-1989) ended and the Heisei era (1989-2019) began, and 2010.

These two decades saw the end of the Cold War and the advent of contemporary globalization, enabling the freer movement of people, goods, and information, and greatly encouraging international dialogue and engagement. Co-curated and co-organized by The National Art Center, Tokyo and M+, Hong Kong, this exhibition reflects on this critical transitionary period through the lens of art.

The exhibition begins with a prologue that sets the stage with the early stirrings of internationalization in the 1980s, followed by a critical turn, beginning in 1989, marked by a surge of artistic activity during a period of dynamic socio-political transformation in Japan. The examination of this era is conducted from three thematic perspectives. The first, “The Past is a Phantom,” explores how artists continued to engage with the trauma of war, the atomic bombings, and other postwar issues. The second, “Self and Others,” focuses on artistic practices that interrogate identity – particularly gender and cultural identity – through the interpersonal exchange of gazes. The third, “A Promise of Community,” features projects that explore new possibilities of relation through interactions with existing communities or creating new ones. Throughout this period, artists in Japan and elsewhere pursued new approaches, acting as prisms that refracted the social and cultural currents of the time into works that pose diverse questions. This exhibition presents a multifaceted view of art in which multiple histories and contexts coexist, while examining Japan as a platform for artistic creation over these two decades from both national and international perspectives.