Japan’s contemporary art scene was once dominated by Tokyo, but since the 1990s, Kyoto’s burgeoning art community has flourished. With organizations like the Kyoto Art Box established to promote Kyoto-based and age-old creations such as the National Museum of Modern Art existing alongside independent art spaces, the city is become a must-visit destination for art lovers. These are some of our must-see contemporary art galleries in Kyoto.
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Must-See Contemporary Art Galleries in Kyoto
Imura Art Gallery
Imura Art Gallery was founded in 1990 by director Yuzo Imura, an exhibition artist active in the local art community in Kyoto and wider Japan and a committee member at the Fair. Art Tokyo 2014. He founded the gallery to showcase emerging artists with a focus on those based in Kyoto and to demonstrate the value of the city as a creative hub for contemporary art. . . . Imura Art Gallery recently introduced young rising artist Takeshi Tanaka, a Fukuoka-born artist whose creations combine both Japanese and Western painting styles, and Yu Kiwanami, also is an artist born in Kyoto and trained locally at Kyoto University of Art and Design, whose most work is a recent series of captivating acrylic paintings depicting faceless figures with landscapes Detailed and haunted background.
Kaho Gallery
Located in a tree-lined residential area on the east side of Higashiyama Ward, Kaho Gallery was established in 1996 and features exhibitions by some of Japan’s best modern artists, including painters. statue. abstract figure Kokuta Suda; Ono Chikkyo, a nihonga painter who helped co-found the Kokuten Society, an artist collective based on the principle that all artists must have full freedom of expression; and Toshio Arimoto, whose paintings are influenced by a blend of European frescoes, traditional Japanese techniques, and Buddhist sculpture. The Kaho Gallery also displays works by more contemporary artists such as German sculptor Reinhard Voss’ Bitter Lennon, a series of wood-sculpted cubic faces, and versions by the Japanese painter. . Shiro Ishibashi version.
Mori Yu Gallery
Established in 2001, with a sister gallery in Tokyo, opened in 2008, Mori Yu Gallery is a commercial art space concerned with the promotion of contemporary art by rising stars. . . and famous artists. Gallery director Yuichi Mori welcomes art while respecting the classical Japanese art traditions of the Edo and later Meiji periods, while incorporating innovation and contemporary influences. He represents a number of talented artists such as the Hiroshima-born sculptor Nobuhiro Hanaoka, whose subjects were influenced by the brutality of art, the countercultural art movement seen as the opposite. . features ‘trendy’ art and video artist, writer and curator Masayuki Kawai, whose work has been exhibited at the Queens Museum in New York and critiques the information society from a radical perspective. Mori Yu Gallery is also a regular presence at Asian art fairs including Art Stage Singapore and Art Taipei.
Kodama Gallery
The Kodama Gallery originally opened in 1998 in the neighboring city of Osaka with the aim of providing an antidote to Japan’s Tokyo-dominated art scene by focusing its efforts on nurturing talent. developed from Osaka and Kyoto. In an effort to introduce more local artists to the Tokyo art world, Kodama opened a branch in Tokyo in 2004 and in 2008 the original gallery moved to its current premises in Kyoto. The spacious space includes two exhibition areas with a total area of 800 square meters. Kodama Gallery has showcased young talents like Mayuko Wada, a painter and sculptor who combines both traditional craft elements like origami and modern design styles like post-minimalism, and more recently introduced a flashback to the works of Mamoru Sakagawa.
En Arts
Located in the picturesque Maruyama Park, a prime location for viewing the beautiful cherry blossoms, and named by the Japan Cultural Agency as a Designated Landscape Site by the Japanese Cultural Agency, En Arts is a modern art gallery focused on celebrating Japanese and international talent and bringing the best of Kyoto Contemporary Art to a wide range of local and international audiences. Founded and run by Naomi Rowe, En Arts’ recent offerings include the group exhibition Eeny meeny miny moe | red – works by six artists themed around red, including contributions by artist Tamotsu Ikeya and abstract oil painter Keisuke Matsuda of Kyoto. En Arts represents promising young artist Kim Kwang Nam, who creates brooding black and white works from silkscreen prints in photography and has won the Kazue Kobata Prize at the Tokyo Marunouchi Art Awards. year 2012.
