The National Art Center Tokyo Inside & Out
October 29, 2008 · Print This Article
Pablo Picasso brought Aya and I to THE NATIONAL ART CENTER, TOKYO in Roppongi recently. This is a newly built museum as part of the Tokyo Midtown development. The museum itself is a very impressive architectural work. The building’s face is a sweeping, curved wall of vertically layered glass leading to a UFO-like entranceway. Once through the doors, the first view upon stepping into the lobby is bold and striking and makes one think, “I’m at a very cool place and I’m ready to see some art!”
The Picasso exhibition (until December 14th) was good, with over 160 paintings spanning over 60 years of his body of work. The presentation of his paintings in the gallery though was a bit mixed, with some paintings not having enough light due to not having their own light. This is probably caused by trying to squeeze in so many paintings. Then of course the exhibition was extremely crowded. Aya and I just opted to wait patiently in line and view the paintings up close at the slow crawl that most people were, rather than trying to cut into the wall of people in front of each painting. In this way we were able to get a good look at each painting in under 90 minutes.
There were many other exhibitions with some very interesting looking paintings, like the eyeball one above, but there wasn’t time to see them on this visit. I did sneak a few photos of the galleries from just outside them (see photo gallery below).
If the lighting in the Picasso exhibition was poor, the lighting in the rest of the museum’s non-gallery interior was outstanding, very effectively creating a mood of discovery that I think complements an art museum very well. The front glass wall of the building offers a different, but equally impressive view, from the inside. The upper floors housing the second tier exhibitions have an ethereal feel to them helped by the halo of light above the main restaurant, while the downstairs hipster stores totally feel like some high-end place in Greenwich Village. This makes for a very nice contrast when ascending the four floors of the museum.
The National Art Center, Tokyo is a good place for architecture buffs, art buffs as well as photographers.
THE NATIONAL ART CENTER, TOKYO PHOTO GALLERY:
ACCESS INFORMATION:
- official museum website in English
- closest stations: Roppongi & Nogizaka
- open 10am to 8pm on Fridays, every other day 10 to 6pm, closed on Tuesdays
Review of The National Art Center, Tokyo & Picasso exhibition…
A review of The National Art Center, Tokyo, including its current Picasso exhibition. Includes a photo gallery of both the interior and exterior of the impressive museum….
Great macro of the eyeball, I thought it was yours or Aya’s before I read the post!
Wasn’t aware you could take pictures in an art museum? Nobody asked you to stop? No guards around?
The whale painting was also great, my kind of art!
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Jason Collin Reply:
October 30th, 2008 at 12:09 PM
Thanks about the eyeball shot, but the painting was a macro of an eyeball, and the painting was huge, so I just zoomed in a bit on the painting. That’s how I got all the shots of the paintings, but standing in the hallway, just out of site of the curators, and then zooming in. Then I got bold and took shots even with the curators in plain site!
The upstairs galleries have wide open entrances. Picasso was protected, so no spy shots possible of those paintings.
There were lots of strange animal paintings in that exhibit, you should go check it out!
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