MORI ART MUSEUM FY2023 EXHIBITION SCHEDULE

Press Release

OCTOBER 31, 2022

MORI ART MUSEUM CELEBRATES ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARYEXHIBITION SCHEDULE FOR FY2023
TWENTY YEARS: A WAYPOINT, AND A MILESTONE.
REVISITING THE MAM MISSION AND JOURNEYING BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN PAST,PRESENT AND FUTURE.
The Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, will celebrate its twentieth anniversary in 2023. Our mission is to be a place
dedicated to the contemporary and international, offering encounters with complex and diverse worlds. The
past 20 years have seen monumental shifts in the world in which we live, both politically and economically,
plus an increase in the number of serious natural disasters, a previously unimaginable pandemic, civil conflicts,and war. Contemporary art reflects all these, in all their aspects.
In the two exhibitions and myriad learning programs planned for the 2023 fiscal year, the Mori Art Museum
will revisit its mission, and journey back and forth along the timeline of past, present and future. WORLDCLASSROOM: Contemporary Art through School Subjects , our exhibition scheduled for the first half of
the anniversary year, will see contemporary art liberated from the “fine art” and “arts and crafts” categoriesof the classroom, and viewed instead as a domain with connections to all sorts of subjects that teach about
the “world. ” The Mori Art Museum will then become a classroom for studying the world, accessible to all.
It is also noteworthy that WORLD CLASSROOM will be the first exhibition where the Mori Art Museum
Collection comprises more than half of the exhibited works in an originally-curated exhibition, providing anopportunity to look back on the museum’s exhibitions to date. Then in the second half of the year 2023, Our
Ecology will contemplate the challenges of global sustainability, including that of climate change as one of
the most pressing issues facing the planet today, in an exhibition also touching on the history of ecology incontemporary art.
Twenty years may be no more than a waypoint on our journey, but it is still a milestone. Our intention is tomake 2023 a year for looking ahead to the next two decades, as we reconsider yet again the role of the Mori
Art Museum in these changing times.
Kataoka Mami, Director, Mori Art Museum
Mori Art Museum 20th Anniversary Exhibition

WORLD CLASSROOM:
Contemporary Art throughSchool Subjects

Yang Haegue
Installation view: Haegue Yang :The Cone of Concern , Museum ofContemporary Art and Design (MCAD),
Manila, 2020
Photo: At Maculangan* Referential image

Period: April 19 [Wed] - September 24 [Sun], 2023

Mori Art Museum 20th Anniversary Exhibition

Our Ecology
Period: October 18 [Wed], 2023 - March 31 [Sun], 2024

* Kindly note that Heatherwick Studio: Building Soulfulness exhibition period has been amended as follows:
Period (New): March 17 [Fri] - June 4 [Sun], 2023 Venue: Tokyo City View (52F, Roppongi Hills Mori Tower)press release

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Agnes Denes
Wheatfield - A Confrontation: Battery
Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan With Agnes Denes Standing in the Field
1982
Courtesy: Leslie Tonkonow Artworks +Projects, New York
Photo: John McGrail

MORI ART MUSEUM FY2023 EXHIBITION SCHEDULE

Press Release

OCTOBER 31, 2022

MORI ART MUSEUM 20TH ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITIONWORLD CLASSROOM:CONTEMPORARY ART THROUGH SCHOOL SUBJECTSPeriod: April 19 [Wed] - September 24 [Sun], 2023
Venue: Mori Art Museum (53F, Roppongi Hills Mori Tower)
Organizer: Mori Art Museum
Curated by: Kataoka Mami (Director, Mori Art Museum), Kumakura Haruko (Assistant Curator, Mori Art Museum), et al.

Since the 1990s, when the development of contemporary art began to be considered from multiple perspectives
in different parts of the world, we have been seeing that contemporary art today goes far beyond the frameworkof arts and crafts and fine art in the school classroom. It is a composite field with connections to all subjects,
including language and literature, arithmetic, science, and social studies. In each of these disciplines, researchers
are exploring the “unknowns” of the world, delving into history, and making new discoveries and inventions fromthe past to the future in order to enrich our perception of the world. The stance adopted by contemporary
artists that seeks to go beyond our preconceptions in a creative way is also connected to this exploration ofthese unknowns. In this sense, the contemporary art museum is something akin to a “classroom of the world”
where we can encounter and learn about these unknown worlds.
World Classroom: Contemporary Art through School Subjects , commemorating the 20th anniversary of theMori Art Museum, is an attempt for us to encounter a world we have never seen or known from a wide variety ofperspectives, using the subjects we learn at school as a gateway to contemporary art. Even though this exhibition
is divided into sections such as “Language and Literature,” “Social Studies,” “Philosophy,” “Arithmetic, ” “Science,”“Music,” and “P. E.,” each work, in fact, crosses over multiple subjects and domains. While over half the exhibited
works will be drawn from the Mori Art Museum Collection for the first time ever, there will also be newlycommissioned artworks for this exhibition - altogether creating a “classroom of the world,” place of learning withworks by some 50 artists/artist groups.
Featured Artists * In alphabetical order of artists ’ surnames
Ai Weiwei, Aoyama Satoru, Joseph Beuys, Sam Falls, Fujii Hikaru, Shilpa Gupta, Hatakeyama Naoya, Susan Hiller,
Jakarta Wasted Artists, Kazama Sachiko, Kikuchi Tomoko, Jacob Kirkegaard, Joseph Kosuth, Dinh Q. Lê, Lee Ufan, Park McArthur,Miyagi Futoshi, Miyajima Tatsuo, Miyanaga Aiko, Morimura Yasumasa, Nara Yoshitomo, Pangrok Sulap, Sopheap Pich,Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Vandy Rattana, Hrair Sarkissian, Sasamoto Aki, Seto Momoko, Sugimoto Hiroshi, Mika Tajima,
Rodel Tapaya, Tsai Charwei, Umetsu Yoichi, Wang Qingsong, Yang Haegue, Yee I-Lann, Yoneda Tomoko, and others[left]
Miyajima Tatsuo
Innumerable Life/Buddha CCI -01 2018
Light Emitting Diode, IC, electric wire, steel, stainless,transformer, LED type “Time Hundred” (Red) 100 plates
251.7 x 251.7 x 15 cm
Collection: Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
Courtesy: Lisson Gallery Photo: Omote Nobutada

CC[top right]
Yang Haegue
Installation view: Haegue Yang: The Cone of Concern ,Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD), Manila,
2020
Photo: At Maculangan * Referential image[bottom right]
Wang Qingsong Follow Me 2003
C-print 60 x 150 cm
Collection: Mori Art Museum, Tokyo

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MORI ART MUSEUM FY2023 EXHIBITION SCHEDULE

Press Release

OCTOBER 31, 2022

MORI ART MUSEUM 20TH ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITIONOUR ECOLOGY
Period: October 18 [Wed], 2023 - March 31 [Sun], 2024
Venue: Mori Art Museum (53F, Roppongi Hills Mori Tower)
Organizer: Mori Art Museum
Curated by: Martin Germann (Adjunct Curator, Mori Art Museum), Tsubaki Reiko (Curator, Mori Art Museum),
Tokuyama Hirokazu (Associate Curator, Mori Art Museum)

The impact of humanity on our planet since the industrial revolution is said to match that of the thousands ofpreceding years of geological change. The environmental crisis is a challenge of utmost urgency, and right now
an important theme on the international art scene.
Is there still any possibility of a sustainable future, in which we leave behind the anthropocentrism thathas triggered this crisis, and instead, as humans, find a new way of relating to all other, non-human entities?
This exhibition interprets the term “ecology ” broadly to encompass concepts like harmony, and cycles ofdifferent sorts, as we contemplate a new kind of “cycle” that includes human communities, ecological systems
incorporating humans, and conditions in realms imperceptible to humans. The title Our Ecology posits thequestions: who are we, and to whom does earth’s environment belong?
Our Ecology will be diverse, covering everything from historical works to new works made especially forthe exhibition. For example, as a protest against global warming and economic disparity, Agnes Denes ’ 1982
conjuring of a wheatfield in the capitalist capital Manhattan offers an opportunity for fresh thought about theworld we live in today. The exhibition will also reexamine art produced and presented in Japan from the 1950s
to 1970s, when pollution formed a dark downside to the country ’s rapid economic growth, in an effort toreconsider today’s environmental problems from a Japanese standpoint. Furthermore, the Mori Art Museum
itself will become an environment in its own right, with steps taken to make this an ecological show in terms ofproduction as well as theme, such as reducing transportation to a minimum, and reusing and recycling resources.
Contemplating how contemporary art and artists have engaged to date with environmental issues, and how
they can do so in future, Our Ecology will aim to explore the possibilities left for the sustainable future on aglobal scale.
Agnes Denes
Wheatfield - A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan With Agnes Denes Standing in the Field
1982
Courtesy: Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York
Photo: John McGrail

The latest exhibition press images are available on our website for downloads:
https://press.mori.art.museum/en/press-img
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E-mail: pr@mori.art.museum Web: www.mori.art.museum/en