Image: The Museum of Art, Kōchi, Kōchi-shi
The Kochi Prefectural Museum of Art in Kōchi-shi has opened a special collection display examining war and the state through works in its holdings, according to a report in Kochi Shimbun. The exhibition runs from August 13 to September 22 and brings together 53 works that address conflict, national symbols and the human cost of war.
The display is organised around two sections, titled 'War' and 'Hinomaru Illumination'. In the first section, the newspaper report highlights Otto Dix’s print portfolio 'War' from 1924, a 50-work series by the German artist who served in the First World War. The article says the prints vividly convey the brutality of the battlefield as seen by an artist who experienced it firsthand.
The second section features a large work that represents the Japanese flag through flashing neon light. Together, the two parts of the exhibition place very different visual languages side by side: one rooted in the documentary force of printmaking, the other in a contemporary, symbol-based treatment of national identity.
Kochi Shimbun described the show as a presentation of artworks that raise a range of questions in a turbulent present. The museum’s selection of works from its collection links historical war imagery with broader reflections on nationhood, while also framing those themes through objects already held by the institution rather than through a loan-based survey.
The article notes that the museum is using these holdings to introduce works related to war and the state, and that the exhibition includes pieces spanning from Dix’s interwar print cycle to the neon-based flag work. The report did not give the name of the artist behind 'Hinomaru Illumination' in the accessible text, but it stressed the contrast between the two featured sections.
The exhibition is on view at the Kochi Prefectural Museum of Art in Kōchi-shi until September 22.
