COLLECTION 2025-3

Adults -700yen(560yen)

College students -400yen(320yen)

Children(High school students and under 18 years old) – Free of charge

Admission is free for disability passbook holders and up to one accompanying adult.

MUNAKATA Shiko’s passion extended to printmaking education for children. From 1956 to 1975 he not only served as a judge on a panel for the Aomori Prefectural Elementary and Junior High School Printmaking Contest, but also taught at a school in Fukumitsu, Toyama (now Nanto City), where he had been evacuated during wartime. His teaching experience wasn’t limited to printmaking, as he demonstrated his respect for children and his heartfelt desire to learn together with them in calligraphy gatherings as well.

Alongside teaching printmaking, he published a book titled “On Printmaking” (1954, Houbunkan), which broadly teaches the standard techniques involved in printmaking. This work not only offers guidance on production processes, materials, and tools, along with detailed discussions of other artists’ work, but also contains a wealth of information on the history of the craft and the contemporary printmaking scene in Japan. It is said that he initially started writing with junior high school students in mind, but for Munakata, what was truly important was that many like-minded people would be inspired, regardless of whether they were children or adults. Moreover, throughout the work, he consistently conveys his own perspective on printmaking, strongly emphasizing, even through Munakata’s distinctive choice of kanji orthography that Japanese woodblock prints “proudly embody the essence of Japan’s unique traditions and beauty” (ibid.).

Although he had no direct involvement with the educational prints introduced in the special exhibition “When the Cosmos Blooms”, the spirit it encapsulates would have resonated with him. A spirit of mutual learning shared with the children he taught and readers of his technical guides, alongside his perspective of observing how learning and life unfold within the community, aligns with the principles cherished by Munakata and those of educational printmaking. This section focuses on MUNAKATA Shiko’s woodblock prints, presenting works such as the Woodcut Prints on the Old Tokaido relay stations, which depict “a beauty that could only exist in Japan” (ibid.) through a perspective that observes daily life.

Now is the time for action!
In 1960, the anti-Liberal Democratic Party social movement group “Young Japan Society”, organized a gathering inviting young artists to declare their opposition to the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. Quoted above was a rallying cry by KUDO Tetsumi, the sole artist with a fine arts background selected to participate. By then, Kudo had already established himself as a leading figure in the “anti-art” movement, challenging the conventional norms of art with everyday objects and actions. After making this statement, he moved to France and persistently drew the ire of Western society by unveiling works with the human body as the focal point, presenting them as “modes of social commentary”. This quote reveals that Kudo sought the potential for his own work to function as a medium capable of transforming the viewer’s sensibilities through a direct connection to the body.

TERAYAMA Shuji Arrested and Fined for Unlawfully Breaking into Apartment and “Peeping”
This headline appeared in the August 1st, 1980 edition of the Mainichi Shimbun. Despite its salacious tone, it actually refers to his accidental trespass onto a property while research. While Terayama was not explicitly caught in the act of “peeping”, what is fascinating is the act itself: gazing at an object as if one were the eyeball, is a practice that exemplifies our highly computerized urban space. The connection between the body and space is established through peeping, expanding and accelerating under the actors’ bodies and nonsensical script, culminating in the entire world’s transformation. A media snafu inadvertently exposing TERAYAMA Shuji’s (along with his theater troupe Tenjo Sajiki) creative stance is quintessentially Terayama-esque.

Kudo and Terayama, both born in 1935, both active within Japan and abroad, hardly ever crossed paths in their lifetimes. And yet, there may be nothing quite as fitting for their postmortal rendezvous than a “Rhapsody,” a melange of happenstances and multiple musical forms. “Kurikaesareru jogyomujo / yomigaeru seitekishodo” (the recurring instability of all things / the renewed sexual impulse” (from this is MUKAI SHUTOKU!). Allow yourself to be absorbed into this uprising of freedom, where bodies and media entwine, drawing into a fleeting moment in time when the two shared the same space at the 1972 Munich Olympics—the very uprising that still shakes the very foundations of this space (aka this museum) we occupy today.

NARITA Tohl, widely known as the art director for tokusatsu television series such as “Ultra Q,” “Ultraman,” and “Ultraseven,” was also an artist who pursued his own artistic expression through the mediums of painting and sculpture. Split between these two worlds, yet still endeavoring to create the kind of art he profoundly believed in, Narita’s unwavering dedication to his work cannot help but touch us deeply. This section showcases a portion of Narita’s multifaceted creative work through the lens of the “outsider.” Rather than focusing on the dichotomy between tokusatsu and fine art, it instead highlights how he managed to continue transcending boundaries across a multitude of genres, ultimately arriving at what his wife, Ruri, described as “complete combustion.”

The term “outsider” encompasses a broad spectrum of unknown entities, from foreigners and aliens to demons and supernatural beings, and serves as a key to unlocking Narita’s creative work. Influenced by painter ABE Gosei and sculptor KOSAKA Keiji, whom he studied under during his time in Aomori, Narita’s approach emphasizes “movement”, and involves overlaying his own imagery onto a human form and transforming it into a sculpture. This process can be seen to mutually influence the design and texture of these “Ultra” individuals, whose forms personify the “outsiders” prominent within media. We hope viewers will set aside the question of whether these pieces constitute tokusatsu or fine art, and instead earnestly engage with Narita’s unique creative position he held throughout his career – the lifelong pursuit of encountering unknown entities: the outsider.

NARA Yoshitomo, an artist from Aomori Prefecture active both in Japan and abroad, has captured the hearts of many people across countries and generations with his paintings depicting such things as solitary children with piercing gazes or his humorous yet somehow sad three-dimensional works of dogs. The Aomori Museum of Art began collecting Nara’s works in 1998, before the museum opened, and now has amassed over 170 of his pieces in its collection.

In the spring of 2025, NARA Yoshitomo’s A Landscape with “Kaccho” (1979), an invaluable oil painting from his early period, was donated to the museum by SUGITO Hiroshi, a fine arts professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts and fellow artist. Sugito is a former student of Nara’s, who worked at a preparatory school as a part-time tutor while attending the Aichi Prefectural University of the Arts, where he was also Sugito’s senior. Due to certain circumstances, Sugito had long been carefully safeguarding A Landscape with “Kaccho”.

Despite their teacher-student relationship, even after Sugito became active as a painter himself, they remained close, both as good friends and, occasionally, as rivals. In 2004, they undertook a several-month residency together in Vienna, and the collaborative works produced during that time were exhibited in Germany under the title Over the Rainbow.

Alongside Nara’s individual works, we are now exhibiting the collaborative pieces created through his partnership with Sugito. We hope you will enjoy Over the Rainbow, the joint result of two artists who remain steadfastly devoted to the classical style of painting, while pursuing their own unique creative worlds, converging into one.