In order to celebrate its 10th Anniversary, the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum will present the Tower of the Sun ― Gambling on the World Expo’ exhibition. The Tower of the Sun, the monument which symbolized Japan’s 1970 World Expo, housed an exhibition on the theme of ‘Progress and Harmony for Mankind’ that was Taro Okamoto’s greatest sculpture. At this Exposition, in which the world’s leading architects competed to create the most modernist designs for their pavilions, Taro announced that he was going to ‘produce something outlandish’, the result being this tower that surpassed race, nationality and language to become a ‘festival’ of mankind. The interior contained a work entitled Tree of Life, which traced the evolution of life, the exhibits being divided into past, present and future, demonstrating that ever since life first appeared on Earth, its basic energy burst up through the present and into the future, offering a eulogy to life, on a vast scale. It can be said that its forms and visual display summed up Taro Okamoto’s artistic ideology and philosophy.

In addition to screening a contemporary film of the Expo that presents a comprehensive view of the Tower of the Sun, this exhibition will also show a documentary featuring recently discovered early sketches together with Taro Okamoto’s comments on the subject. Please experience for yourself Okamoto’s own thoughts as he devoted himself to the Expo.