Image: Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima
The Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art will open a special exhibition dedicated to Mel Chin, winner of the 12th Hiroshima Award, on July 25, 2026. The museum says the show will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in Japan and will remain on view through October 12, 2026, in B Gallery. The opening day will also feature an artist lecture, giving audiences a direct introduction to Chin’s practice as the museum marks the award with a major exhibition rather than a single ceremonial event.
The exhibition is tied to Hiroshima’s long-running effort to present the “spirit of Hiroshima” through art. The museum’s exhibition page notes that the Hiroshima Award was established in 1989 and has been awarded every three years, with the city using it to communicate its message of peace and human flourishing to the world. In that context, the Chin exhibition functions as both a tribute and a platform for international exchange, placing a socially engaged American artist within an institution whose mission is closely linked to Hiroshima’s postwar identity.
Chin, born in 1951, has built a practice around complex social issues, especially environmental concerns, through work that resists fixed categories. According to the museum, his output includes sculpture, drawing, painting, video, animation, video games, and large-scale public installations. The institution also emphasizes his long-term projects, including collaborations with local residents and the use of scientific approaches, as part of his broader exploration of how art can stimulate social awareness and responsibility.
The Hiroshima show will include representative works from Chin’s career as well as new pieces created specifically for Hiroshima. The museum says the exhibition will present the possibility of social transformation and self-transformation through art. Among the works referenced on the exhibition page are Revival Field, ongoing since 1991, along with Our Strange Flower of Democracy, Cross for the Unforgiven, The Funk & Wag from A to Z, Bat and Dove, Dispatcher, and Vertical Palette. Together, these references suggest a survey of Chin’s range while also pointing to the continuity of his long-term thinking.
For Hiroshima MOCA, the exhibition reinforces the museum’s role as a site where contemporary art, civic memory, and public dialogue intersect. It is also notable as Japan’s first solo presentation of Chin, broadening local access to an artist whose work has circulated internationally but whose practice has not previously been centered in a Japanese museum survey. The combination of historical recognition, new production, and public programming gives the project unusual institutional weight.
The museum lists admission at 1,600 yen for adults, with reduced prices for students, older visitors, and advance sales, and free entry for middle school students and younger. The exhibition is co-organized by Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art and Asahi Shimbun, with support from local broadcasters and Hiroshima City Board of Education. Alongside the July 25 lecture, the museum has also scheduled gallery talks in August and September, extending the exhibition’s public-facing dimension beyond the opening weekend.
