Along with the Welcome back, Yokohama exhibition commemorating the reopening of the Yokohama Museum of Art, the first collection exhibition on the 3rd floor introduces newly acquired works during the three-year closure under two separate themes.

The first is "To the Forest of All Living Things," a new work by an artist with deep connections to Yokohama: Asai Yusuke (b. 1981). The work was funded by a donation to the Yokohama City Culture Fund made by The Yokohama Shinkin Bank in 2023 in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the bank’s founding.

Asai is an artist who uses familiar materials like soil, water, masking tape, and pens to depict animals, plants, and the spirits that inhabit mountains, rivers, and trees. He is also known for his collaborative projects held in Japan and around the world in which he collects local soils and uses them to make paintings. The creation of this work began with volunteers making pigment using soil from all over Yokohama. The work was then painted in four different locations: Yokohama Shinkin Bank’s Tsurugamine branch, Head Office, and Ichiba branch, and BankART Station. Don’t miss this opportunity to view this giant work that is three meters in height and consists of nine panels of different sizes.

The second theme is contemporary art since the 1980s. The Yokohama Museum of Art’s policy is to collect art from the 19th century to the present. When acquiring contemporary art, we look for works that speak to the present day and that also resonate with existing pieces in the collection.

Here the focus is on works from the 1980s and 2010s that were acquired during the museum’s temporary hiatus. The 1980s saw Japan’s contemporary art become more diverse against the backdrop of the nation’s booming economy. Female artists creating works about everyday events and the body emerged, as did male artists who worked with their hands or were concerned with issues of gender. Gender issues and the approach of viewing the world through the lens of everyday life have been inherited by contemporary artists since the 2010s.

This exhibition will be the first of several spanning approximately one year that will introduce the collection with a focus on new additions made over the last three years.