Maison du Japon: Intimate Cosmos of Takahashi Collection

Exhibition Cosmos \ Intime – Takahashi Collection brings Japanese artworks from collection of Ryûtarô Takahashi to Maison de la Culture du Japon in Paris. The exhibit showcases forty artworks from 23 Japanese artists from iconic ones to artists born after the 1960s. Many of the works have not been previously exhibited in Europe.

Psychiatrist Ryûtarô Takahashi’s collection consists of over 2.000 works he has acquired since 1997. He started with paintings by Yayoi Kusama and Makoto Aida, but has then acquired works from a wide number of young-generation artists. Over the years, the collection has become to represent and reflect trends and changes in the Japanese art over the past three decades.

The exhibition at the Japanese Cultural Centre in Paris includes works from artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Yoshitomo Nara, Makoto Aida, Kôhei Nawa, Naoya Hatakeyama, Mika Ninagawa, Kumi Machida, Manabu Ikeda, Hiraku Suzuki and Erina Matsui.

“Most of the artists in ‘Cosmos \ Intime’ are unaware that they reflect Japanese particularism in their works, but they also don’t seek to rally a Western style either,” Takahashi says. “Their elders instead, starting from Murakami, embody social ills of Japan after the burst of the financial bubble in the 1990s.”

With the exhibition, Ryûtarô Takahashi calls for mindfullness in perceiving art and looking at art “as it is,” detached from personal interpretations, opinions and emotions.

“It is then that something you had previously thought was art may appear to be something completely different. Alternatively, something you did not consider to be art may become art for you. I want viewers to compare the respective works, mindfully, without preconceptions,” he states referring to the different generations of artists presented in the exhibition. •

‘Cosmos \ Intime – Takahashi Collection’ at Maison de la Culture du Japon in Paris, France, from 7 October 2015–23 January 2016.

Main image
Kumi Machida: Le visiteur (2004).
Chinese ink, pigments and mineral pigments on Kumohada hemp paper.
Size 90,9 x 116,7 cm.
Copyright Kumi Machida, Courtesy of Nishimura Gallery.