The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo will reopen in late March 2019. To commemorate this, the special exhibition "One Hundred Years of Weavers: Japanese Modern and Contemporary Art in Flux" and the collection exhibition "MOT Collection: Welcome Home / Nice to Meet You" will be held from March 29th to June 16th.

Kishida Ryusei, Self-Portrait for Tsubaki-kun, 1914
Twenty years after its 1995 opening, the museum reopened after a three-year closure for facility renovations and improvements to its facilities. These two exhibitions will feature a large-scale exhibition of the museum's collection throughout the museum. The museum's collection dates back to the late Taisho period, when approximately 3,000 works were transferred from the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno, which transferred the collection to the museum upon its opening. The collection now comprises approximately 2,200 works, totaling approximately 5,200 pieces. Its distinctive feature is its focus on the distinctive creativity of each era, taking a different approach from conventional art history. Reconsidering this collection, which connects the prewar and postwar eras and takes into account the creative endeavors of this century, through a comprehensive exhibition at the museum's new beginning will be an important endeavor that broadly questions the significance of the museum, which has always been engaged with contemporary creative activity.

Yuki Katsura, Resistance, 1952
The special exhibition "A Century of Weavers: Japanese Modern and Contemporary Art in Flux" uses the museum's collection as its core to reconsider Japanese art over the past century, from the 1910s to the present, as the practice of weaver artists who have developed unique creative works by capturing new and old forms of expression with an editorial perspective.

From the Taisho era, when Kishida Ryusei was active, to the present day, the "weavers" of each era have faced the challenges of the time and created works that critically explore the "state of Japanese art." Rather than relying on a rigid historical perspective, this exhibition explores the background of modern and contemporary Japanese art, focusing on the activities of artists whose work disrupts their subjectivity through the selective "editing" of various elements. It also explores the creative processes surrounding the museum's location, Kiba, which has undergone significant changes over time. Using all three floors of the special exhibition galleries, this exhibition offers a first-of-its-kind opportunity to showcase the museum's experimental works from the 1910s to the present, from a perspective that connects them to current creativity. By reexamining modern and contemporary Japanese creativity from the perspective of the endeavors of "knitters" who have edited a diverse range of new and old forms of expression and techniques and forged creative relationships with society, the exhibition uncovers pioneering creative practices that explore the hybrid nature of Japanese creativity itself. In addition to selected works from the museum's collection, which has accompanied the diverse forms of contemporary art, the exhibition also features valuable prewar materials from the library, including creative print magazines and special collections. Nakazono Koji, Untitled, 2012
Meanwhile, the collection exhibition "MOT Collection: Welcome Home / Nice to Meet You" will feature works from the museum's current collection of approximately 5,200 pieces, spanning a wide range of genres from modern to contemporary art, with a focus on postwar art. The museum strives to convey the diverse appeal of contemporary art by offering a variety of perspectives for each exhibition, ensuring that the same works can always be viewed from new perspectives. During the nearly three-year closure, approximately 300 new works were acquired, and this year's collection exhibition, commemorating the museum's reopening, will focus on these new acquisitions. This first exhibition will focus primarily on works created in the 2010s, but will also feature restored pieces, allowing visitors to experience the appeal of each piece in the newly renovated exhibition rooms.