[ 2020 Schedule ]

March 14–July 26, 2020 *Extended

Ryuzaburo Shikiba: Mirrors of Cerebral Ventricles

While employed as a physician and managing a hospital, the psychiatrist Ryuzaburo Shikiba (1898-1965) studied and popularized the work of a number of artists in Japan, including that of Vincent van Gogh. Shikiba exerted a tremendous influence on the culture through an extremely enlightened and diverse range of activities. These included his involvement in Muneyoshi Yanagi’s research on the sculptor Mokujiki and the Mingei movement; his introduction of Nishoutei, a strange building that once stood in the Fukagawa district of Tokyo; and his pioneering advocacy of outsider art. In this exhibition, we took an all-encompassing look at Shikiba’s endeavors by examining artworks from his collection other documents.

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May 30–July 19, 2020 *Cancelled

The Innocent Paintings: Ai-Mitsu, Shunsuke, and the Painters of the War Era

Ai-Mitsu (1907-1946) created distinctive paintings, which combine fantastic expressions with detailed and highly realistic depictions while displaying the influence of classical Asian art. Focusing on Tokyo, which at the time was in the midst of becoming a metropolis, for his subject matter, Matsumoto Shunsuke (1912-1948) devised a unique world containing a mixture of images. In addition to important works by these artists, the exhibition presents some 165 outstanding pieces from the late 1920s to the early ’50s. The event provides a new generation with an opportunity to reconsider the power of painting as Hiroshima commemorates the 76th anniversary of the atomic bomb.

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July 18–October 18, 2020 *Rescheduled in summer 2023

The 11th Hiroshima Art Prize Alfredo Jaar

The Hiroshima Art Prize was created to convey the “Spirit of Hiroshima” to the world by means of contemporary art. Alfredo Jaar (b. 1956), the 12th recipient of the award adopts a journalistic approach in which he thorough examines and researches historical events and tragedies, and social inequalities all around the world. By presenting his work in public places, and making installations, consisting of photographs, videos, and architectural spaces, which appeal to all five senses, Jaar strives to convey information about various social, political, and humanitarian problems. This exhibition, the artist’s first full-fledged solo show ever held in Japan, includes important works from the past as well as new pieces made especially for Hiroshima.

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February 29–September 27, 2020 *Extended　

2020-1 Collection Highlights & Special Feature1: The Earth /Special Feature2: The Art of Fate

This exhibition is composed of three parts: “Collection Highlights,” and two special features, “The Art of the Fate” and “The Earth.”

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August 6 – November 29, 2020 *Rescheduled

2020-2 Collection Highlight & Special Feature: Portraits of Self and Others

The exhibition consists of two parts, the first entitled “Portraits of Self and Others,” and the second a Special Feature titled “Collection Highlights.”

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GENBI Recollections

The Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (also known as GENBI for short) will temporary close on December 28, 2020 in order to renovate the entire facility, which was built over 30 years ago. (The museum is scheduled to reopen in March 2023.) While carrying on the ideas and designs of the building’s architect Kurokawa Kisho, the renovation project is intended to restore the facility’s basic functions as a museum as well as redesigning some areas and creating new spaces. Ahead of the project, we present a special three-part exhibition and workshops called GENBI Recollections to etch the original form of the museum into viewers’ memories.

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August 1 - October 18, 2020

Summer Open Lab Hana Sawada: A 360-degree Detour

Sawada Hana (b. 1991) focuses on small unidentified objects in photographs and other printed matter. Using a variety of methods to analyze and examine these things, Sawada makes installations that showcase this process. Although the obscure and indistinct tend to make us anxious, Sawada neither ignores nor eliminates anything for this reason. Sawada accepts a given entity as it is, and allows her imagination to run free, and when there is no answer, she questions the meaning of continuing to consider it. The exhibition will provide viewers an opportunity to enjoy a variety of scenes as they make a series of detours – none of which are wrong.

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February 20 – March 7, 2021

Open Call for Art Project Ideas and Design Ideas of “Hiroshima Brand” 2020

Open Call for Art Project Ideas, which accepts submissions from the public for work plans, and Hiroshima Brand competition, which accepts submissions for design plans related to Hiroshima, are held simultaneously in a free public space. Winning-entries will be shown in the former Hiroshima branch of the Bank of Japan, a building that survived the atomic bombing of the city.

Note: Please see the official competition website or an event flier for more details in August.

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May 8–July 26, 2020

[The 69th Program] Ahn Sungseok

This work is a simulation of a first-person video game. Ahn describes a game as “a virtual space where all eras of history blend together,” and says that “playing a game is a process of creating a new or fictional history.” In the actual game that Ahn utilized to produce this work, the player can freely alter everything including the game’s content.

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May 12–July 19, 2020

[The 70th Program] Rosa Nussbaum

The artist floats in a pool sheathed in an elaborately constructed violin, while manipulating its strings to produce sounds. A “maiden voyage” is the first voyage of a new vessel and also the title of this work, a performance Rosa Nussbaum presented as her graduation project and the video documenting it.

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July 28 - November 3, 2020

[The 71st Program] Anna Vasof

We are pleased to present selections from the Things and Wonders short-video series, which Anna Vasof has been working on since 2016. The video pieces feature familiar everyday items such as cleaning supplies, stationery goods, and cooking utensils, and Vasof causes them to deviate from their everyday uses in ways that elicit surprise and laughter.

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October 10,2020 – March 14, 2021

The Hiroshima MOCA Collection at Various Venues B. Okawa Museum of Art (Gunma Prefecture)

This year, the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, we consider the power of painting by looking back at the work of artists who lived through the war in a two-part exhibition. The first part consists of approximately 50 works by the Hiroshima-born painter Ai-Mitsu (1907-1946) as well as pieces by other artists of the era. The second part examines an exhibition of The Hiroshima Panels, a collaborative work made by Maruki Iri (1901-1995) and his wife Toshi (1912-2000), which was held in 1952 at the Morimasa Department Store in Kiryu, Gunma Prefecture.

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