About the Exhibition

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (MOMAT) was dedicated on December 1, 1952. Celebrating the 60th anniversary of the MOMAT, this exhibition will use all the floors of the museum’s main building to get to the heart of modern Japanese art. The title Art Will Thrill You! contains our belief in the moment when we have a valuable encounter with a work of art, an experience that everyone has chances to enjoy. These words represent the thrill that is the starting point for experiencing the bodily sensation of art, being deeply impressed, and thinking intellectually.

The first section of the exhibition MOMAT Collection—60th Anniversary Gala will use the renovated galleries to present a choice selection from our collection that is the result of our museum activities spanning sixty years. The exhibits have played the leading roles in various ways in the sixty-year history of the museum, while at the same time being important pieces in the history of modern Japanese art. They will continue to gather the threads of new stories in numerous encounters.

The second section Experimental Ground 1950s is an attempt to historically examine the vigor and experimental spirit of art in the 1950s, or sixty years ago when the museum opened. The era that set the starting line of present-day Japan, the 1950s assume particular importance for us today because of the appetite for ideals of future society that was alive in the decade. Instead of looking back on the 1950s as a bygone age, we should pick up enthusiasm in those days as an impetus for the future.

We will try to re-examine our collection that has been built up over years from today’s perspective to discover its unknown power and to bestow more care on it. At the same time, we will experience vicariously art and society in those days when the museum opened to stay focused and go back to basics. These two attempts are both lined with our commitment to regard the past sixty years as a seedbed for possibilities for exploring the future, without entrenching the period as a bygone era. We hope the two sections with different characteristics—one offering a compilation of sixty years of the museum activities, and the other going back to sixty years ago—will help understand the present MOMAT from multiple points of view. Going forward, we hope these attempts will provide a chance to open up a new perspective on modern Japanese art.

Hours & Admissions

Location

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

Date

2012.10.16(Tue)-2013.1.14(Mon)

Time

10:00-17:00 (Friday is 10:00-20:00)
*Last admission : 30 minutes before closing

Closed

＊Closed on Mondays (except December 24, 2012 and January 14, 2013), December 28, 2012 – January 1, 2013

Admission

Day ticket (Group of 20 persons or more)
Adults: ¥1,300 (900)
College / University students: ¥900 (600)
High school students: ¥400 (200)

*All prices include tax.
*Middle school age and under 15 are free of charge.
*Persons with disability and one person accompanying them are admitted free of charge.

Free Admission on Your Birthday! (In celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Museum)

From February 3, 2012 to January 14, 2013, on your birthday you are admitted free to all the galleries, including the Main Building and the Crafts Gallery. Please present an ID showing your birth date at the ticket office.

Free Admission Days

December 1, 2012

Organizers

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
NHK
NHK Promotions, Inc.

Patronize

Agency for Cultural Affairs

Special Support

ISHIBASHI FOUNDATION

Sponsor

Sompo Japan Insurance Inc.
Nissha Printing Co., Ltd.

Media enquiries

Public Relations Art Will Thrill You!
buru60@windam.co.jp