Image: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, CONTEMPORARY ART TOKYO
The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo will present ‘MOT Collection: Seeing Some Light Now’ from September 19, 2026, through January 6, 2027, in its Collection Exhibition Galleries. The exhibition will draw on the museum’s holdings to examine the relationships between light and time, bringing together works from the collection alongside newly acquired pieces.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo holds approximately 6,100 works, with a collection focused primarily on postwar art. Its recurring ‘MOT Collection’ exhibitions introduce works from those holdings through changing thematic approaches. The forthcoming presentation will consider how different forms of light can evoke distant moments and layered histories within the present.
The exhibition’s stated theme encompasses light from several sources and scales: radiation emitted by distant stars thousands or even tens of thousands of years ago, shifting sunlight, subdued moonlight, electric illumination and the brief glow of fireflies. The act of looking at light—whether understood as seeing, observing or scrutinizing—will be connected to the recollection of scenes from the past.
According to the exhibition description, the works are intended to direct attention to the past contained within contemporary time and to the overlapping sequences that shape the present. Artists named in connection with the presentation include Mami Kosemura, Kimio Tsuchiya, Alisa Kumagai and Shigeo Toya. The museum’s announcement does not provide a complete checklist or specify the newly acquired works.
‘MOT Collection: Seeing Some Light Now’ will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with admission to the galleries ending 30 minutes before closing. The museum will extend its hours until 8 p.m. on every Friday in November. The exhibition will be closed on Mondays, except September 21, October 12 and November 23, as well as on September 24, October 13, November 24 and from December 28 through January 1.
Admission is ¥500 for general visitors, ¥400 for university and vocational-school students, and ¥250 for high-school students and visitors aged 65 or older. Junior-high-school students and younger children enter free. The collection presentation can also be viewed with tickets to the concurrent exhibitions ‘Minami Tada: Light, Firmly and Gently Swaying’ and ‘Synchronous Star Cluster—Stars That Shared Time: Transborder Artistic Perspectives.’
The exhibition is organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture. A student free period supported by Bloomberg is scheduled for October 10–12, when junior-high-school, high-school, vocational-school and university students may enter by presenting valid student identification.
