【Notice of Change in Opening Date for the Upcoming Special Exhibition “TARO’s Space”】

Due to facility maintenance work, the opening date of the upcoming exhibition “TARO’s Space” has been changed.
The exhibition will now open on Friday, November 7.

Taro Okamoto considered the overall space to be his canvas. To put it another way, he was an artist who sought to create space through his work. I think this is a fact that cannot be denied.

Typically, a painter’s viewpoint will be limited to the ‘panel’ on which he paints, and perhaps also the ‘wall,’ on which the work will be displayed, however, Taro’s images existed in three dimensions and possessed an endless range. He built sets for Kabuki theatre, designed window display, created outdoor plazas, painted pictures of light while flying in a helicopter over Tokyo’s Ginza at night, erected a giant Christmas tree in front of Ikebukuro Station, and built a seventy-meter-tall tower for the 1970 Osaka Expo.

Eventually, he even turned his hand to architecture. This was not simply ‘something resembling architecture,’ but a genuine building with all the physical amenities necessary to carry out its function. Unfortunately, however, this building, that was called ‘Mami Kaikan,’ (1968) has already been demolished and no longer exists.

This exhibition brings together diverse works and materials that attest to Taro’s relationship with spatial design, including a newly created 1/40 scale model of the ‘Mami Kaikan,’ and numerous other works that Taro created to be used in everyday spaces.

We hope you will come and experience Taro Okamoto’s extraordinary spatial sense.

Akiomi Hirano

Director,

Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum