This exhibition presents works from the museum’s collection with the theme of the written word in contemporary art.

Our daily lives are saturated with text. The words you are reading now are written in characters, and we encounter them constantly in emails, social media, books, signs, posters, and video subtitles. Although text, as a means of communication, has become an inseparable part of everyday life, we rarely stop to recognize its existence or think about its design and functions.

In art, as in daily life, text is often used to convey information or messages: it can bring out new meanings, spark deeper thought, and expand the imagination. At the same time, there are limits to what text can do, and its presence can actually disrupt meaning or prevent superficial interpretation.

Some works draw attention to the acts that surround the written word—writing and reading it—revealing their physical dimension. Focusing on this physicality offers an important perspective in today’s world, where interacting with text through digital devices has become routine.

The works in this exhibition span painting, printmaking, posters, calligraphy, ceramics, video, and installation, and nearly all of them incorporate text. Why does a work make use of text? Why was a particular piece of text chosen? Why is it presented in this form? What effects arise from its presence? Looking at the works from these perspectives opens up new possibilities for interpretation. At the same time, exploring the collection of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa with text as a lens offers a chance to reflect on our own relationship with written language in the age of social media. We invite you to discover the richness and depth of expression that the written word can bring to art.