Kaihō: Japanese Women Artists after 1945

This exhibition will be the first European survey examining the essential role of women artists from Japan in the global postwar era and the transformative decades that followed. Focusing on a period of significant social change, this comprehensive overview will offer an opportunity to encounter radical modes of artistic expression that emerged in Japan and its transnational community across Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America.

Organised into thematic sections, Japanese Women Artists after 1945 will provide an insight into dynamic cultural exchanges and the forgotten margins of modernism. Drawing from the artists’ personal lives, creative resilience and transnational activism, the exhibition will bring together works by Atsuko Tanaka, Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, Fujiko Nakaya, Tomie Ohtake, Taeko Tomiyama and Yoshiko Shimada, among many others – some of which have rarely, if ever, been shown outside of Japan. From Gutai to experiments in video art, the exhibition will explore the radical yet often overlooked contributions of Japanese women artists to global postwar art movements. .Organised by Mudam in collaboration with Lenbachhaus Munich and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, this presentation will reimagine the development of various transnational art histories from the 1950s to the 1990s through a contemporary lens.