Unmissable exhibitions in summer 2019 夏の展覧会

Rugby World Cup 2015: Japan's impact

At the Rugby World Cup 2015 in England, Japan made an impression in their first match by defeating the favorites of the competition, the South Africa Springboks. Later eliminated despite their three victories in the pool phase, the Brave Blossoms nevertheless managed to generate tremendous enthusiasm throughout Japan for the sport.

One hundred days before the start of the 2019 Rugby World Cup that's to be held in Japan from September 20th to November 2nd, the Canon Open Gallery in Shinagawa presents a photo exhibition that looks back at the 2015 competition with shots of the national team, taken by six photographers who have been following rugby competitions for many years.

• Address: Canon Open Gallery 1 & 2, 2F Canon Tower S, 2-16-6 Konan, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8011
• Opening: From June 12th to August 5th, 2019
• Opening hours: Open Monday to Saturday from 10:00 to 17:30.
• Access: 8-minute walk from Shinagawa Station Konan Exit, JR Keihin-Kyuko Line
• Price: free
• Find more information on the gallery's website (Japanese only).

The Matsukata Collection: A One-Hundred-Year Odyssey

In only nine years, Kojiro Matsukata (1866-1950) has managed to bring together a collection of exceptional works of art. This naval magnate from Kobe bought masterpieces by Monet, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Rodin as well as medieval paintings and tapestries from Europe.

To celebrate this century-old collection, the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo offers a stadium of 160 works selected from the 10,000-piece Matsukata collection.

Christian Boltanski "Lifetime"

This exhibition at Tokyo National Art Center, "Lifetime", is one of the largest retrospectives on Christian Boltanski's work held in Japan, and documents a half-century of the French artist, photographer, sculptor and filmmaker born in Paris in 1944.

International contemporary artist Christian Boltanski has been particularly popular in Japan since the early 1990s, thanks to several solo exhibitions including the Art Tower Mito and his participation in the Echigo Tsumari and Setouchi Triennales. It's for the latter that his installation The Archives of the Heart was inaugurated on the island of Teshima in 2010.

The science behind Pixar

The gallery of Roppongi Hills Observation Deck Tokyo City View is currently hosting an exhibition dedicated to the world of animation; that of the Pixar American studios. This traveling exhibition, "The Science Behind Pixar", first opened in 2015 in Boston, and has already attracted more than 1.5 million visitors in the United States and Canada. This six-month stint in the Japanese capital is the first time the exhibition is being held in Asia.

Created by the Boston Science Museum in collaboration with the American company Pixar Animation Studios, it aims to explain, in a fun way, how mathematics, computer science and science are necessary for the production of computer animation movies. A family visit "to infinity and beyond"!

Dress code: are you playing fashion?

Is fashion a game? And if so, can you master the rules? This is the question that Kyoto's National Museum of Modern Art intends to answer with its upcoming exhibition. By presenting a wide range of fashions, from 18th century courtwear to 21st century creations, the exhibition focuses mainly on our relationship with fashion and dress-codes, and how they are changing with our modern, ultra-connected society.

Fashion is an essential element of social communication today, even more than in years past; each garment or accessory can reflect how you feel, or your socio-cultural category, and respond to codes. If clothing creates an implicit communication between us and others, what does the outfit you're wearing today say about you?