TOKYO ART PICKS (JUNE)

June 01, 2026 ,featured

"Colin Liddell" (2012) by Hiroshi Sugimoto (private collection)

In numbers of eyeballs on artworks Tokyo is the undisputed art capital of the world. In fact, there is so much art to see that it is a major effort to choose which exhibitions to visit. So, here is Tokyo Metropolis's "filter system" in action, choosing which exhibitions we think we—and, by extension, you—would most enjoy or benefit from.

This month we are recommending abstract art, a photographic legend, hyperrealism, surrealism, and French Proto-Impressionism as a chaser.

Yoko Matsumoto, “Night," 1991, acrylic on canvas

MATSUMOTO YOKO: THE DAY I SAW THE EVENING STAR

Abstract art is always a hard sell, but one of its leading exponents in Japan has long been Yoko Matsumoto who is now 90 and still going strong. Her large, luminous cloudlike compositions defy easy categorization and have no symbolic agenda, existing more as loose explorations of visual tonality and the effervescence of transient emotions. But the 35 large paintings (and 15 drawings) included in this exhibition at the FUCHU MUSEUM OF ART are works that you can lose yourself in and "de-centre," something that is invariably good for what is left of our souls in this hectic world. And, yes, "Night" (1991) does look like a giant piece of candy floss!

Now – 12th Jul

PRICE: ¥800

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Hajime Sorayama, Untitled (1982), acrylic on illustration board H36.4 x W51.5 cm

YUTAKA AOKI: KNOTS AND PEBBLES

More abstract art! This time from the totally free KOSAKU KANECHIKA GALLERY in the Toda Building. The gallery's latest show is dedicated to 40-year-old Kumamoto-born artist Yutaka Aoki whose work oscillates between the visual and the tactile with aesthetically potent canvases built up with paint drips, peeling, stretching, and underlying layers that focuses on the point where beams of light interact with particles of mass. Larger works (150 X 150 cm) sell in the US$10,000–US$15,000 range and are probably an excellent investment.

Jun 12th – 25th Jul

PRICE: FREE

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Hiroshi Sugimoto, Bay of Sagami, Enoura, 2025 © Hiroshi Sugimoto / Courtesy of Gallery Koyanagi

HIROSHI SUGIMOTO: EXTINCTION

The general public best know of Sugimoto's cool, silver gelatine photographic art from U2's 2009 album cover, "No Line on the Horizon," which featured one of his prints. However, the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, TOKYO clearly believes he is bigger than the Irish arena rockers, as they are putting on a career-spanning retrospective designed to enshrine his name in the art pantheon. Drawing on 13 of Sugimoto’s photographic series, the show reveals the artist's restless exploration of the photographic medium. Expect to see his well-known Dioramas, Seascapes and Theatres, as well as more daring work: at one point in his career the radical lensman even attempted to take photos without a lens, exposing sheets of film to blasts of electricity that were conducted and refracted through basins of salty water in a darkened room. The coolness of his silver medium clearly hides a restless and raging spirit.
Jun 16th - 13th Sep

PRICE: ¥2,300.

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"Mass" (2016-2017) Synthetic polymer paint on fiberglass, installation view: Ron Mueck, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, 2025, photo: Nam Kiyong

RON MUECK

One of the sure-fire ways to have artistic impact is to "GO BIG." Few artists have made more of this clever ploy than Ron Mueck, the 68-year-old Australian artist based in the UK, who is now the subject of a major show at Roppongi's MORI ART MUSEUM. What makes Mueck worthwhile as an artist, however, is that he uses this "giantist" technique to focus, in a hyper-realistic and ironically microscopic manner, on the human condition. The exhibition presents eleven works that dot the artist’s trajectory from early masterpieces to more recent works, including the "Mass" (2016-2017), a work which has obvious affinities with Japanese Buddhist and yokai art.

N0w – 23rd Sep

PRICE: ¥2300

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René Magritte The Museum of the King (1966) Yokohama Museum of Art

SURREALISM: EXPANDING FROM THE VISUAL ARTS TO ADVERTISING

The Japanese have long felt a close affinity with mid-20th-century European Surrealism. The result of this is that many works by the likes of Rene Magritte, Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, and others are awkwardly scattered around in dribs and drabs, taking up space in various museum and private collections. Occasionally, however, someone has the bright idea of gathering these works together and putting on a proper show, like the one at the TOKYO OPERA CITY ART GALLERY which has collected around 150 items in a variety media. The show attempts to show how the movement fed into advertising, fashion, and interior design.

Now – 24th Jun

PRICE: ¥1800

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EUGENE BOUDIN

With a big Monet exhibition that has just finished at the Artizon, it is appropriate that the SOMPO MUSEUM is hosting a show by one of his mentors, namely Eugene Boudin (1824-1898). Often described as a "Precursor of Impressionism," Boudin was renowned for his proactive techniques to capture the look and feel of the ever-changing skies above his native Normandy, something that helped set the template for Monet. This is the first major exhibition of Boudin's work in Japan in approximately 30 years, with around 100 works, primarily oil paintings, drawings, pastels, and prints, from the artist known as the "King of the Skies."