Cherish, your imagination

The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) is delighted to announce its upcoming exhibition “Cherish, your imagination” which invites parents, children and people of all ages to revisit the childlike innocence within each one of us, as a first step of experiencing the magnificent potential of artistic expression.

The exhibition returns us to the creative child’s mind that we may have forgotten as we became adults, and features media-technology based artworks and screenings to appeal to adults and children alike. Wandering through the themed spaces of “Senses” - as Body, Sound and Words, Oblivion and Galaxy, visitors experience art based on interactive participation, physical expression, sound, writing and video, as well as historical documents and artworks from the MOT Collection. Throughout the duration of this exhibition, we will also offer several workshops held in cooperation with local communities and educational institutions.
While also a “contemporary art show for children,” this exhibition takes a neotenic approach (=adult mind with childlike appearance) to equalize adults and children temporarily. Through the exhibition, we try to learn and consider highly acclaimed new and old art and technology sent out into the world from Japan after the end of the Second World War. Visitors are invited to regard the artworks in close detail, become part of interactive pieces, take commemorative photos and get in touch with outer space as they take a tour through the exhibition area. After enjoying a screening of artworks at the end of the exhibition, visitors are given back their forgotten “real names,” like in Michael Ende’s Neverending Story, in order to reunite them with the fascination of the familiar world. We would be delighted if visitors young and old, children and parents, friends, couples and single visitors return from the museum with fresh, newly discovered sensualities, as if having been reborn. As art and our daily lives adapt to new changes, in the brief period between summer and fall 2020, when we may just witness the singularity between culture and technology, we invite you to enjoy this exhibition that aims to remind us of the childlike wonder within us all and asks us to consider new possibilities of artistic expression.

Highlights

１　An explorable exhibition space & related program
Beginning with an exhibition introducing artworks of the MOT Collection, visitors tour spaces centered on the themes Senses, Body, Sound and Words, Oblivion and Galaxy, enjoy large-scale video screenings or participate in workshops aimed at all ages (workshops scheduled to be held in the exhibition space during the exhibition period; remote workshops also included]. Leaving the Forest of Oblivion and then the Forest of Space, visitors find themselves at the beginning of the exhibition, reborn and ready to start anew.

2　Ultra-high-resolution artworks
The exhibition also includes screenings of artworks in 8K resolution(as part of the introductory exhibition; free of charge). We invite you to pay close attention to the possibilities of expression in every corner of the finely detailed images, and to take part in various related programs such as special video screenings in 3D (tentative) held during the exhibition period.

3　STEAM education and awareness exhibition
Programming has become a mandatory part of Japan’s school curriculum in 2020, and with it the importance of “STEAM” education – adding an A for Art to the “STEM” term (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) – also gains in importance. In this exhibition we introduce new and old works from the 1960s until today that make use of technology to expand the range of expression – from “Generated Art” to works created at the intersection of art and technology, using technologies such as VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) that have become widespread in contemporary art, ultra high-definition resolutions, artificial intelligence, and human augmentation (including an excursion into superhuman sports). We invite you to experience this technology-heavy side of contemporary art during your visit.

Exhibition outline / Artworks

Introductory exhibition
Experience artworks of a beauty that seems to halt the flow of time (from the MOT Collection) and the audiovisual impact of 8K artworks.

“Senses”
An exhibition that reminds us of the importance and delight of our tactile senses, with regard to traditional kinds of artistic expression that usually veer towards the visual.

“Body, Sounds and Words”
An experiment in experiencing bodily expression through works involving books or the written word, and works that require physical participation.

“Oblivion”
Old and new media, historical documents and recent artworks asks us to reconsider our images and our memory.

“Outer Space”
As we imagine the expanding vastness of space, we are being reborn along with our creative imagination.

*may be subject to change

Participating artists

The Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo(Kohei Nawa, Tokujin Yoshioka), MADD. (Movie for Art, Design and Data) works in 8K, GRINDER-MAN, Hideyuki Ando, Jun Fujiki, Noramoji Project, Optical Illusion Block Project, Justine Emard, phono/graph, IDEAL COPY, CTG, Masao Komura, Hiroyuki Moriwaki, Jun Kosaka, AR 3 Brothers, Rhizomatiks Research / ELEVENPLAY / MIKIKO / Daito Manabe / Motoi Ishibashi / Kyle McDonald, Junji Watanabe (NTT Communication Science Laboratories), Yoichi Ochiai & JPO Project (Visual: WOW)

Available to download "Diagram of Our Universe" below.
Diagram of Our Universe 2018

*All Programs are subject to change.

Related events

We plan to host a variety of additional events, such as screenings of 8K high-resolution video artworks (3D, reservation required), presentations and workshops by participating artists and educational institutions (incl. remote workshops and the “Childlike Wonder Museum (working title)”), stargazing and read-aloud events and many more.

* may be subject to change
* Please visit the MOT’s website for up-to-date information related to the exhibition