Upcomming / Current Exhibition
Upcomming / Current Exhibition
![](https://taro-okamoto.or.jp/en/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/メインビジュアル_正方形.jpg)
![](https://taro-okamoto.or.jp/en/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/メインビジュアル_正方形.jpg)
Kenji Yanobe: Taro, Cat, and Sun
Once again, the prodigy of the contemporary art scene will be hijacking the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum.
Past Exhibition
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Tarō Okamoto’s Tōhoku
In 1957, five years after he discovered Jōmon culture, Tarō Okamoto set out on a trip in search of the true essence of Japanese culture and the first place he visited was the Tōhoku region, where he encountered ‘primeval Japan’.
Tōhoku was a poor region, cut off from the rest of the country in the winter, but there he discovered a ‘spirit of magic’ in dialog with an invisible power, still existed.
![](https://taro-okamoto.or.jp/en/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/idensi.s.jpg)
Twenty Year’s of the TARO Award/Twenty Enfants Terrible
Left alone following Tarō Okamoto’s death, Toshiko proved much more resilient than many of us had feared. She said that it was her job to transmit a knowledge of Tarō’s work to the next generation and set about achieving this without delay.
explore![](https://taro-okamoto.or.jp/en/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/tatehana.s.jpg)
Noritaka Tatehana, Aesthetics of Magic
Taro Okamoto is an exceptional artist who goes far beyond my comprehension and makes me want to think that he himself is the magic. All his life, Taro never sold his work with his own hands. For Taro, resisting the society was his way of interfering with the society with all his might.
explore![](https://taro-okamoto.or.jp/en/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/okinawa.ss_.jpg)
Tarō Okamoto’s Okinawa
In November 1959 Tarō Okamoto visited American administered Okinawa for the first time.
It was to be a well-deserved holiday and even Toshiko, who never went anywhere without her writing materials, set off without so much as a notebook. However, no sooner did they arrive than all thought of a vacation was banished.
![](https://taro-okamoto.or.jp/en/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/jomon.s.jpg)
The Dignity of Life — Tarō Okamoto’s Jōmon
A fateful meeting in November 1951 resulted in Tarō Okamoto finding a ‘lifelong friend’. Five years after he had resumed his artistic activities in Japan following the war, he happened to visit Tokyo National Museum in Ueno where he encountered a pot dating from the Jōmon period (14,000–300 BC).
explore![](https://taro-okamoto.or.jp/en/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/taiyonoto.jpg)
Confronting the Tower of the Sun!
Let’s make the most of this, the greatest roof in the world. That was what I thought as I looked at a model of the vast horizontal line created by this structure and I felt an overpowering impulse to smash through it. I wanted to challenge the graceful plain surface of the vast roof with something absurd.
explore![](https://taro-okamoto.or.jp/en/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ishitoki.jpg)
The ‘Trees’ of Taro Okamoto
Taro Okamoto felt a great affinity with ‘trees’. The sight of them reaching up to the heavens made him aware of the dynamism of life. He superimposed human ideals on the youthful spreading of their limbs and felt they represented a circuit through which people could commune with heaven.
explore![](https://taro-okamoto.or.jp/en/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/seimeitai.jpg)
Taro Okamoto’s ‘Life Forms’
Overall, the ‘Tree of Life’ Forms a Single ‘Life Form’
When he was planning the ‘Tower of the Sun’, Taro decided to build the ‘Tree of Life’ within it.
![](https://taro-okamoto.or.jp/en/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/kotoba.jpg)
The‘Words’of Taro Okamoto
During the course of his life, Taro Okamoto published a huge number of books and other writings. It is probably true to say that there has never been another artist who devoted so much enthusiasm to words.
Traditions, culture, the Jomon period, Okinawa, Mexico, skiing, the subtleties of men and women.....