Gallery
Gallery
Gallery
Japan Society Gallery is among the premier institutions in the U.S. for the exhibition of Japanese art. Extending in scope from prehistory to the present, the Gallery’s exhibitions since 1971 have covered topics as diverse as classical Buddhist sculpture and calligraphy, contemporary photography and ceramics, samurai swords, export porcelain, and masterpieces of painting from the thirteenth to the twenty-first century. Each exhibition, with its related catalogue and public programs, is a unique cultural event that illuminates familiar and unfamiliar fields of art.
Current Exhibitions
Acky Bright: Studio Infinity
October 4, 2024-January 19, 2025
Conceived as Acky Bright’s Studio Infinity, the exhibition offers visitors an exceptional opportunity to meet the artist, witness his freestyle “live drawing,” and participate in making a series of anime murals.
Bunraku Backstage
October 4, 2024—January 19, 2025
Bunraku Backstage offers a rare glimpse behind the scenes of the theater, a dramatic art integrating performances of skilled puppetry, shamisen music, and narration that has evolved since the early 17th century in Japan.
Upcoming Exhibitions
Kotobuki: Auspicious Celebrations of Japanese Art from New York Private Collections
March 14 – May 11, 2025
This exhibition explores auspicious imagery and celebratory subjects across a wide range of Japanese artworks dating from the 12th-19th centuries. Curated by Dr. Miyeko Murase, Takeo and Itsuko Atsumi Professor Emerita of Japanese Art History at Columbia University, this exhibition offers an opportunity to view important but rarely displayed works from from significant private collections in the New York City area. Paintings, calligraphy, textiles, and ceramics will be unified by the central theme of kotobuki (celebration).
Susumu Shingu: Elated!
June – August 2025
Japan Society Gallery relaunches its summer exhibition series with a solo exhibition of the acclaimed sculptor Susumu Shingu (b. 1937). Shingu’s application of biomimicry—drawing inspiration from natural forms and processes—appears in both the form and the dynamic movement of his kinetic sculptures. His abstract organic shapes recall insects, birds, and plants; their movements are powered by the often-invisible forces of our environment: wind, heat, light, water, and gravity. The exhibition highlights inspired sculptures in various sizes, including the artist’s site-specific sculptures in New York.
Gallery Exhibition Hours
Timed Tickets
$12/$10 students and seniors
Free Admission always for members, patrons with disabilities and an accompanying Personal Care Assistant
* November 1, 2024; December 6, 2024; January 3, 2025
Student Group Tours
K-12 school groups can schedule virtual and on-site gallery tours for an interactive art experience led by trained museum educators, who incorporate close-looking, personal connections, inquiry, and related activities for K-12 students. Two weeks advance request recommended.
Become a Japan Society member and enjoy free admission to our Gallery and 20% or more off on other Japan Society programs and events.
Past Exhibitions
None Whatsoever: Zen Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection
March 8—June 16, 2024
None Whatsoever: Zen Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection explores the origins of Zen Buddhism through over four centuries of ink paintings and calligraphies by painter-monks, including the celebrated Buddhist master Hakuin Ekaku.
Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus
October 13, 2023—January 21, 2024
This exhibition will be the first to fully explore the essential role of Japanese women in Fluxus, a movement that helped contemporary artists define new modes of artistic expression.
Kyohei Inukai
March 17—June 25, 2023
Kyohei Inukai is the first institutional solo exhibition of Kyohei Inukai (1913–1985), a largely unknown, yet prolific Japanese-American artist. Presenting key bodies of work—many of which have never been shown before—this exhibition highlights Inukai’s paintings and screenprints of illusionary, abstract lines and shapes that defined his artistic style during the latter years of his career, from the 1960s through the 80s. These works are juxtaposed with a series of sumi-e, or Japanese ink paintings, that dovetail Inukai’s distinctive curvilinear forms and nuanced color palettes with traditional Japanese art. This rare presentation of an underrecognized artist’s legacy builds upon Japan Society’s ongoing mission to embrace and showcase diverse narratives of art and artists of Japan and the Japanese diaspora.
Refashioning: CFGNY and Wataru Tominaga
November 18, 2022—February 19, 2023
Japan Society presents the exhibition Refashioning: CFGNY and Wataru Tominaga from November 18, 2022 through February 19, 2023. The first show devoted to the art of contemporary fashion at Japan Society, the exhibition explores the work of CFGNY and Wataru Tominaga, two emerging fashion labels that engage with the intersections between fashion, art, and identity. Featuring garments, accessories, and textile-related works, the exhibition examines the ways in which these two practices—one based in New York, and the other in Tokyo—experiment with artistic mediums beyond conventional forms of dress, while challenging preconceived notions of gender and identity.
Kazuko Miyamoto: To perform a line
April 29—July 24, 2022
Japan Society presented the solo exhibition Kazuko Miyamoto: To perform a line between April 29–July 24, 2022. The exhibition was the first institutional survey of Kazuko Miyamoto (b.1942, Tokyo), a relatively little-known but significant artist, and will provide a long overdue examination of this singular artist’s career. This exhibition reclaims Miyamoto’s contributions to the development of Minimalism, challenging its general understanding as male dominated, and embraces her highly individual artistic pursuit to reveal a sustained interest in the body through evocative conceptual experiments and investigations in performance and textiles.
Shikō Munakata: A Way of Seeing
December 10, 2021—March 20, 2022
This new presentation of nearly 100 path-breaking works by celebrated artist Shikō Munakata (1903-1975) is organized from Japan Society’s rare collection—the largest Munakata collection in the United States. Primarily known for his powerfully expressive woodblock prints, this exhibition reveals the breadth of Munakata’s oeuvre, which spanned from prints to calligraphy, sumi ink paintings, watercolors, lithography, and ceramics.
Exhibition Catalogues
Top Image: © Alan Klein
Japan Society programs are supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Exhibitions and Arts & Culture Lecture Programs are made possible, in part, by Sompo Holdings, Inc.; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund; the Mary Griggs Burke Endowment Fund established by the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation; The Masako Mera and Koichi Mera, PhD Fund for Education and the Arts; Peggy and Dick Danziger; Jun Makihara and Megumi Oka; Barbara Bertozzi Castelli; and Gallery Circle members. Support for Arts & Culture Lecture Programs is provided, in part, by the Sandy Heck Lecture Fund.
Transportation assistance is provided by Japan Airlines, the official Japanese airline sponsor for Japan Society gallery exhibitions.
