[2026–2027] Guide to Contemporary Art Exhibitions: From Mariko Mori to the Sapporo International Art Festival

From autumn 2026 to spring 2027, contemporary art exhibitions and art festivals continue across Japan. At the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi, Tokyo, “Mariko Mori: All That Shines,” which the museum describes as her first large-scale solo exhibition in Japan in 24 years, opened on Saturday, October 31. On Saturday, January 16, 2027, the triennial Sapporo International Art Festival begins. This article introduces 13 exhibitions and festivals on view or opening soon in Tokyo and the Kanto region, Kansai, Tokai and Hokuriku, and Hokkaido, Tohoku and Shikoku.

This is also a year in which new art festivals have begun. In Gunma, “The 1st Maebashi International Art Festival 2026,” and in Tokyo’s waterfront area, the international art exhibition TOKYO ATLAS, organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and others, both run until Sunday, December 20. Meanwhile, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa holds a final special exhibition questioning how works are passed on, ahead of its long-term closure from May 2027. Abroad, the 16th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea runs until November 15.

Contemporary art exhibitions and festivals in Tokyo and the Kanto region

Mariko Mori: All That Shines (Mori Art Museum)

A solo exhibition presenting about 40 works, including installations, sculptures, video and photographs, from more than 30 years of activity. It is co-curated by Alexandra Munroe of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation and Mami Kataoka, director of the Mori Art Museum. “Wave UFO,” a large-scale interactive installation using a brain-wave interface, is also shown, and places inside its pod are limited.

Dates: Saturday, October 31, 2026 – Sunday, March 28, 2027
Venue: Mori Art Museum (Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 53F)
Details in our article on Mariko Mori: All That Shines

International Art Exhibition TOKYO ATLAS (Daiba, Aomi and Tennoz)

An international art exhibition organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and others, in which 20 artists and groups from Japan and abroad, including Yayoi Kusama and Leiko Ikemura, install works in places such as a park on the site of a late-Edo-period battery, on the sea and in an underground parking lot currently out of use. According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Kusama’s “I Went to Space and Saw a Bouquet of Love” is being shown in Japan for the first time. Admission is free, and only the underground parking lot venue requires timed reservations. WHAT MUSEUM in Tennoz, one of the venues, and nearby galleries are summarized in our Tennoz art guide.

Dates: Saturday, October 10 – Sunday, December 20, 2026
Venues: Venues in the Daiba, Aomi and Tennoz areas (Tokyo waterfront)
Details in our article on TOKYO ATLAS

The 1st Maebashi International Art Festival 2026 (Maebashi City, Gunma)

The first edition of an art festival held in central Maebashi, in which 70 artists and groups from Japan and abroad install works at Arts Maebashi, the Shiroiya Hotel, shops in shopping arcades and outdoors. Works include Martin Margiela’s “PODIUM” and Tadashi Kawamata’s “Tree Hut Maebashi 2026,” made on site in the zelkova tree in front of Arts Maebashi. The venues are gathered within a radius of about 500 m and can be toured on foot.

Dates: Saturday, September 19 – Sunday, December 20, 2026
Venues: Arts Maebashi and other locations in central Maebashi
Details in our article on the Maebashi International Art Festival

YOSHIROTTEN: Communication with the Beyond / BEYOND EARTH (TOKYO NODE)

A solo exhibition by YOSHIROTTEN showing large installations, paintings and sculptures, including new works based on astronomical observation data made with the cooperation of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The entire high-rise gallery, about 200 m above ground, is conceived as a single spaceship. The solar sail spacecraft IKAROS and the control console of the satellite Ohsumi are also specially displayed.

Dates: Friday, October 30, 2026 – Monday, January 11, 2027 (national holiday)
Venue: TOKYO NODE (Toranomon Hills Station Tower, 45F and 49F)
Details in our article on the YOSHIROTTEN exhibition

Hans Haacke (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)

A retrospective of the artist born in Cologne, Germany, in 1936, whom the museum introduces as one of the central figures of conceptual art in 1960s New York. The museum’s English exhibition page describes it as Haacke’s first major retrospective in Asia. It takes up works and projects dealing with issues ranging from the environment to political and corporate power; admission fees and closing days will be announced later. The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and nearby museums are introduced in our Ryogoku and Kiyosumi-Shirakawa art guide.

Dates: Saturday, February 6 – Sunday, May 16, 2027
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Exhibition Gallery 3F (in Kiba Park, Tokyo)
Details in our article on the Hans Haacke exhibition

Contemporary art in Kansai: the National Museum of Art, Osaka and a festival on Mt. Rokko

Special Exhibition “Where Words Overlap” (The National Museum of Art, Osaka)

Focusing mainly on places regarded as border zones in Asia, the exhibition looks at video, images and words connected with places where languages, ethnicities, cultures and ideologies intersect. Sixteen artists and groups take part, including Cao Fei, Chikako Yamashiro, Ilya Kabakov and Kei Imazu. The six video works listed on the official website have a combined running time of 109 minutes and 46 seconds.

Dates: Tuesday, December 1, 2026 – Sunday, March 14, 2027
Venue: The National Museum of Art, Osaka (Nakanoshima, Kita-ku, Osaka)
Details in our article on Where Words Overlap

Kobe Rokko Meets Art 2026 beyond (Mt. Rokko summit)

An art festival that began in 2010 and is now in its 17th edition, with about 60 artists and groups installing works at ten venues on top of Mt. Rokko. The normally closed “Chapel on Mt. Rokko” (Church of the Wind), designed by Tadao Ando, is opened as an exhibition venue only during the festival. Yayoi Kusama’s large three-dimensional work “Pumpkin” can also be seen, and the light art program “Forest of Light” is held on weekend and holiday evenings.

Dates: Saturday, August 29 – Sunday, November 29, 2026
Venues: Ten venues in the Mt. Rokko summit area (Kobe City)
Details in our article on Kobe Rokko Meets Art

Contemporary art in Tokai and Hokuriku: Toyota, Nagoya and Kanazawa

Shigeru Hasegawa: Pain Tengu (Toyota Municipal Museum of Art)

A solo exhibition by a painter who moved to Germany in 1989, later worked in the Netherlands, stopped exhibiting in 2013 and resumed solo exhibitions in 2019; according to the museum, it is his first large-scale solo exhibition at a museum. From unpublished works from his student years in Germany to new works for the exhibition, about 120 oil paintings are shown along with drawings and materials. The new works include a large painting more than 3 meters wide, his first of that size in about 30 years.

Dates: Saturday, October 24, 2026 – Sunday, January 24, 2027
Venue: Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (Toyota City, Aichi)
Details in our article on the Shigeru Hasegawa exhibition

Sekai no Kotowari: Art of Our Time (Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art)

The exhibition introduces the work of 20 Japanese artists, centered on works from the 1990s, when globalization advanced and Japanese artists had more opportunities to show abroad, to the present. Organized around the keywords “identity,” “body,” “history” and “globalized society,” it is a touring version of an exhibition held at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.

Dates: Friday, January 29 – Sunday, April 4, 2027
Venue: Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art (Higashi-ku, Nagoya)
Details in our article on Sekai no Kotowari

From Today to Tomorrow: Passing On Works of Art (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa)

The final special exhibition before the long-term closure asks what it means to pass works on to the future, presenting processes such as research, restoration, re-staging and documentation as part of the exhibition. James Turrell’s “Gasworks” is shown for the first time in 16 years and can be experienced free of charge (a same-day exhibition ticket is required). Performances and an exhibition of Chiharu Shiota + Toshiki Okada’s “On the Room of Memories” are also planned.

Dates: Saturday, October 31, 2026 – Sunday, April 18, 2027
Venue: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Kanazawa City, Ishikawa)
Details in our article on the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art’s closure

Contemporary art in Hokkaido, Tohoku and Shikoku: Sapporo, Hirosaki and Kochi

Sapporo International Art Festival 2027 (11 venues in Sapporo)

The triennial festival’s theme is “PLANET SNOW – upas mintar / upas nociw.” Treating Sapporo as a planet, it shows works at 11 venues, including Moerenuma Park, the Odori site of the Sapporo Snow Festival and the aquarium AOAO SAPPORO. Ticket types and prices had not been posted on the official website as of October 19.

Dates: Saturday, January 16 – Sunday, February 21, 2027 (varies by venue)
Venues: Sapporo Civic Gallery, Moerenuma Park and other venues in Sapporo (11 in total)
Details in our article on the Sapporo International Art Festival 2027

Taisho ⇆ Reiwa Avant-Garde (Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art)

The exhibition juxtaposes works by artists active in northern Tohoku in the Taisho era, when the word “avant-garde” came into use in Japan, with works by contemporary artists of the Reiwa era. Through works by Tetsugoro Yorozu, Shiko Munakata, Junzo Kon and others, and by Etsuko Ichihara and Haruka Komori + Natsumi Seo, among others, it considers the “avant-garde” of each era. The venue is a brick building constructed as a brewery in the Meiji and Taisho eras.

Dates: Friday, December 4, 2026 – Sunday, May 16, 2027
Venue: Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art (Hirosaki City, Aomori)
Details in our article on Taisho ⇆ Reiwa Avant-Garde

ARTIST FOCUS #06 Akiko Nakayama: Forms of Foam (The Museum of Art, Kochi)

A solo exhibition by Akiko Nakayama, known for “Alive Painting,” in which she sets liquid paints in motion and shows the traces of their changes as live video. In addition to recent works from the series and documentary footage of past performances, it presents “CHROMA,” a new painting installation and her first work to use canvas.

Dates: Saturday, November 7, 2026 – Sunday, January 17, 2027
Venue: The Museum of Art, Kochi (Kochi City)
Details in our article on the Akiko Nakayama exhibition

Frequently asked questions

Which exhibitions can be seen for free?

TOKYO ATLAS is free, with some paid programs. The Maebashi International Art Festival has many free venues and outdoor works that do not require a passport, and at Kobe Rokko Meets Art, venues such as the Rokko Cable Car and the Rokko Garden Terrace area can also be seen free of charge. At the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, the series “With Noto” is on view free of charge until April 18, 2027.

Which exhibitions are free for high school students and younger?

The National Museum of Art, Osaka’s “Where Words Overlap” is free for high school students and younger and those under 18. The Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Art, Kochi are free for high school students and younger, and the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art’s Shigeru Hasegawa exhibition for junior high school students and younger. At the Maebashi International Art Festival, high school students and younger can also enter free by picking up a Kids Pass.

Summary

From solo exhibitions at museums to art festivals staged on the waterfront, in shopping arcades, on a mountaintop and in a snowy city, the venues and dates vary widely, so check how to get around in each article before you go. Also in Tokyo, “Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate the City,” featuring ten artists from art, architecture and fashion, is on at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery until December 20.

*Information as of October 20, 2026. Please check each article and the official websites for dates, prices and reservations.

*Top image: Exterior of the National Museum of Art, Osaka, July 2014 (Photo: Mc681, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

*This article was compiled by the TOKYO ART SPHERE editorial team based on TOKYO ART SPHERE’s individual articles and official information from the organizers.

Text: TOKYO ART SPHERE Editorial Team