Japan’s art market is among the fastest growing in the Asia-Pacific, and the third edition of Tokyo Gendai—the country’s first truly international fair—arrives with programming that pairs major exhibitions with a spotlight on homegrown talent and recent Japanese art history. The fair’s director told Observer in a recent interview that the years from 2019 to 2023 marked a period of striking momentum in Japan’s market, fueled by the arrival of heavyweight international galleries. Last year, Pace and Ceysson & Bénétière opened new spaces in Azabudai Hills and Ginza, signaling both commercial ambition and a bid to court the country’s increasingly confident, younger class of collectors more attuned to international proposals. At the same time, the pandemic years ushered in a wave of new local galleries committed to mixing Japanese talent with international dialogue in fresh, inventive programs opening across the city.

Continuing its push to energize Tokyo’s art scene, Tokyo Gendai returns this week with a packed program of events, institutional tie-ups and international collaborations designed to keep global eyes on Japan. Ahead of the fair’s opening and what has become a high-stakes week of cultural happenings, we’ve compiled a list of essential shows—both commercial and institutional—that no one should miss.

While many are familiar with Japan’s traditional and postwar art, or with its more recent underground and Superflat aesthetics, few surveys have examined how the country’s opening to the world in the 1980s shaped artistic expression in relation to its evolving society and identity. Deepening ties with both Tokyo’s art ecosystem and international institutions, Tokyo Gendai has partnered with the National Art Center and M in Hong Kong to present "Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989-2010," which offers a fresh perspective on the evolution of Japanese contemporary art at that pivotal historical juncture. Co-curated by the two institutions, the exhibition moves beyond the shadow of postwar trauma to trace the trajectory of Japanese art from the boom years of the 1980s and ‘90s through the pressures of globalization and cultural competition. Featuring work by more than 50 artists from Japan and abroad, the show reflects on a transitional era when new practices emerged or drew inspiration from Japan between 1989—when the Shōwa era ended and the Heisei era began—and 2010. The exhibition opens with a prologue on the first stirrings of internationalization in the 1980s before pivoting to 1989, when a surge of experimentation unfolded amid sweeping socio-political change. This cultural and identity shift is explored through three thematic lenses. "The Past Is a Phantom" considers how artists grappled with war’s lingering imprint on both society and the individual psyche. "Self and Others" interrogates identity, gender and hierarchy, revealing how Japanese culture can facilitate exchanges across differences. Finally, "A Promise of Community" highlights projects that forge new forms of relation, whether through engagement with existing communities or the invention of new ones.

After opening its new Azabudai Hills space last year with a museum-quality Calder exhibition, Pace Gallery Tokyo now turns its focus to the radiant vision of Sonia Delaunay. "Everything Is Feeling" assembles 42 works on paper from the 1920s to 1940s—studies for her fabric designs that capture the fluid synthesis of color and light she pursued across media. A polymath and Jewish émigré from present-day Ukraine, Delaunay is often linked to Guillaume Apollinaire’s term “Orphism”—a label she rejected—yet her practice remains one of its most compelling embodiments. Fueled by a lifelong exploration of color’s emotional, psychological and phenomenological force, she translated the pulse of modern life into a kinesthetic, near-musical experience of abstraction. Organized with Gió Marconi Gallery, the Tokyo show highlights her visionary interplay of color, pattern and form while placing it in dialogue with Japan’s aesthetic traditions. The result is an intimate yet resonant........

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