Image: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, CONTEMPORARY ART TOKYO
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo has opened ‘Constellation: The Gaze of Transcending Borders’, on view from 5 September to 13 December 2026. The exhibition, installed in the museum’s first- and third-floor exhibition galleries, considers modern Taiwan and Japan through art, literature, film, music, theatre, dance and archival materials.
Filmmaker Huang Ya-li is the exhibition’s guest curator. The presentation takes as its point of departure Huang’s film 『日曜日の散歩者』, concerning the Windmill Poetry Society, a modernist poetry group formed in Taiwan in the 1930s.
The exhibition is organized in six chapters, using a montage-like combination of artworks and materials across disciplines. Huang’s direction includes moving images, reflective materials and a circulation route through the galleries.
Around 200 paintings, sculptures, prints and photographs are drawn from more than 15 museums and museums in Taiwan, as well as private collections. Approximately 500 documents are included, together with around 100 works from Japan. Participating artists include Huang Tu-shui, Chen Cheng-po, Li Mei-shu, Ho Te-lai, Lin Yu-shan, Kuo Hsueh-hu, Hong Rui-lin, Huang Tsao-tsao, Chen Hsiayu and Chuang Shih-ho.
The documentary material includes books and magazines published in Taiwan and Japan, correspondence between artists, personal notes and albums, and items relating to literature, music, the record industry, dance, theatre and craft. Materials concerning Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples are also included.
The exhibition design is by UxU Studio, founded in 2013 by the Taiwan-based architects Chen Kuan-Hung and Chen Ying-Chu. The design incorporates reflective materials.
‘Constellation: The Gaze of Transcending Borders’ is open from 10am to 6pm, with final entry to the galleries 30 minutes before closing. The museum remains open until 8pm on Fridays in November. It is closed on Mondays, except 21 September, 12 October and 23 November, and additionally on 24 September, 13 October and 24 November.
