NORITAKA TATEHANA STUDIO and the Craft Research Lab of the Department of Design and Crafts at Joshibi University of Art and Design will present Rethink Noritaka Tatehana — In the Hands of Time, an exhibition commemorating the 15th anniversary of Noritaka Tatehana’s creative practice. The exhibition will run from September 10 through October 6, 2026, at the Joshibi Art Museum.

Rethink Noritaka Tatehana — In the Hands of Time / © NORITAKA TATEHANA K.K.

From his Heel-less Shoes, inspired by the elevated geta sandals worn by oiran courtesans, to sculpture, painting, printmaking, and installation, the exhibition surveys works Tatehana has created over the past 15 years. Yet this is not simply a retrospective. Instead, it turns renewed attention to what lies behind the finished works: the act of making by hand.

Choosing materials. Repeating prototypes. Working with tools and honing techniques. Engaging with craft traditions handed down over generations. Rather than reading Tatehana’s 15-year practice solely through the works themselves, the exhibition reconsiders it through the “hands” that have brought those works into being.

“Rethink” as a Method of Creation Sustained for 15 Years

“Rethink,” the word at the heart of the exhibition title, was not coined for this occasion. It is a concept Tatehana has consistently placed at the center of his creative practice. Rather than simply preserving history and culture or reproducing forms from the past, it reflects an approach of reconsidering them from the perspective of the present and connecting them to new forms of value.

Born in Tokyo in 1985, Tatehana studied textile arts in the Department of Crafts at Tokyo University of the Arts, graduating in 2010. That same year, his Heel-less Shoes gained international attention after being worn by Lady Gaga. Yet to see the Heel-less Shoes merely as footwear distinguished by an unconventional silhouette is to miss the essence of Tatehana’s approach to making.

Heel-less Shoes “Night Makers,” 2018 | Private Collection / © NORITAKA TATEHANA K.K.

The work was inspired by the elevated geta sandals once worn by oiran courtesans in Japan. Rather than reproducing a historical form, Tatehana examined the aesthetics, bodily sensibilities, and techniques embedded within it, reconstructing them through a contemporary visual language. This method extends far beyond the Heel-less Shoes. As his practice has expanded into sculpture, painting, printmaking, installation, and even stage direction, Tatehana has continued to question the relationship between Japanese culture and history and the present day.

To revisit “Rethink” at the milestone of his 15th anniversary, then, is not simply to arrange 15 years of work chronologically. It is also to examine a creative method: what Tatehana has looked toward, what he has inherited from the past, and how he has transformed it for the present.

Looking at the “Hands” Behind the Finished Work

Another key phrase in the exhibition is “handwork.” What we encounter in museums is usually the finished artwork. Yet before a work reaches completion, an enormous amount of time is spent researching materials, selecting tools, making prototypes, failing, revising, and accumulating technical knowledge. This exhibition brings that process—usually hidden behind the finished object—into view.

Shoemaking Tools, late 19th-21st century｜Artist's collection / ©︎NORITAKA TATEHANA K.K.
The exhibition includes shoemaking tools passed down from the 19th century to the present, some of which Tatehana still uses in his own practice today. Rather than ending their lives as historical objects displayed in a museum, these old tools remain in the hands of a contemporary artist, continuing to generate new work. That continuity across time encapsulates one of the exhibition’s central ideas.

Nor does the exhibition focus solely on Tatehana’s own hands. Alongside material research, prototypes, and production processes, it highlights his collaborations with practitioners of traditional crafts throughout Japan. A work may ultimately be presented under the name of a single artist, but tracing its making reveals connections to many other hands: those who produce materials, inherit and transmit techniques, and make the tools themselves.

Making those relationships visible—relationships that cannot be seen in the finished object alone—is another important dimension of an exhibition centered on handwork.

Does Handwork Belong to the Past?

Words such as “craft” and “handwork” are often associated with ideas of tradition and preservation. Yet what Tatehana has addressed through “Rethink” is not the preservation of the past in an unchanged form. His practice seeks to understand the contexts in which techniques and cultures emerged, then reconnect them with contemporary values and forms of expression. This is why the Japanese cultural references found in his work never remain quotations from the past.

Heel-less Shoes “Atom,” 2023 | Suzuki Collection / © NORITAKA TATEHANA K.K. Photo by Osamu Sakamoto

Just as the elevated geta of oiran courtesans were transformed into the Heel-less Shoes, inherited techniques and aesthetics acquire different meanings when they encounter contemporary bodies, society, and art.

What does it mean to carry tradition into the future? Is it to preserve a form without alteration? Or is it to understand the knowledge, techniques, and aesthetics at its foundation and allow them to be renewed through the expressions of each era? The word “Rethink” embodies Tatehana’s creative response to that question.

New Work Emerging from an Edo-Period Furisode

One of the clearest expressions of this idea can be found in the relationship between Joshibi University of Art and Design’s textile collection and Tatehana’s new work.

The exhibition presents textile materials preserved by the university, including the 19th-century Edo-period Furisode with Pine, Bamboo, Plum, Crane, and Tortoise Motifs, alongside new works Tatehana created in response to them. Here, historical objects do not exist merely as cultural properties to be viewed.

Furisode with Pine, Bamboo, Plum, Crane, and Tortoise Motifs, Edo period (19th century)
Collection of Joshibi University of Art and Design Art Museum

Something once made by another person’s hands, then preserved and researched by a university, encounters a contemporary artist and becomes the starting point for new creation. Handwork from the past gives rise to handwork in the present, which in turn will be carried into the future. In this sense, “Rethink” can also be understood as a circulation of time.

Why Joshibi University of Art and Design Matters

The fact that this exhibition is being held at Joshibi University of Art and Design is significant in itself. Since 2019, Tatehana has served as a specially appointed professor in the Craft Course of the university’s Department of Design and Crafts. A university is not only a place where cultural heritage and techniques are preserved, but also one where they are studied, passed on to the next generation, and used to generate new forms of expression.

Arrows, 2019 | Artist’s Collection / Photo by Keizo Kioku

Presenting textile materials inherited and preserved by Joshibi alongside new works by a contemporary artist means refusing to treat “preservation” and “creation” as separate activities.

Students learn techniques inherited from the past. A working artist transforms them into new forms of expression. Another generation then encounters those works. Handwork does not begin and end with the hands of a single artist. Culture continues because knowledge and techniques move from one generation to another.

Descending Painting “The Sun Breaking through Clouds,” 2023 | Artist’s Collection / © NORITAKA TATEHANA K.K. Photo by GION

Holding an exhibition marking Tatehana’s 15th anniversary at Joshibi—a place of education and research as well as exhibition—therefore connects naturally with the idea of “Rethink” that has shaped his practice.

Another “Rethink”: The Concurrent Exhibition Venus

During the exhibition period, Noritaka Tatehana: Venus will also be presented concurrently at Joshibi SPACE 1900 on the university’s Sagamihara Campus.

Noritaka Tatehana: Venus / © NORITAKA TATEHANA K.K.

Venus is a universal motif that has appeared repeatedly throughout art history, while at Joshibi it has also long been familiar as a presence associated with the university’s history and spirit. Tatehana, however, is not attempting to reproduce historical images of Venus. From the Paleolithic Venus of Willendorf to goddesses of the ancient Mediterranean world, classical sculpture, and modern art, humanity has repeatedly recreated the figure of Venus, reflecting the values and aesthetic ideals of each era.

Tatehana approaches Venus as an “archetype”—a form inherited and continually renewed across time. Centered on a new large-scale portrait, the exhibition presents works that reconstruct imagery derived from ancient sculpture and mythology as contemporary portraiture. Here, too, the same method as “Rethink” is at work.

Rather than quoting masterpieces of the past, Tatehana reads the memories and aesthetic sensibilities that run through them and questions them anew from the present. If Rethink Noritaka Tatehana — In the Hands of Time revisits his 15-year practice through techniques, materials, and processes of making, Venus considers from a contemporary perspective how the meaning of a universal image has shifted across different eras.

Looking Beyond 15 Years Rather Than Simply Looking Back

Across the 15 years that began with the Heel-less Shoes, Tatehana’s practice has expanded far beyond footwear into sculpture, painting, printmaking, installation, and the stage. Yet the question at its foundation has remained remarkably consistent.

How can culture inherited from the past be reconsidered in the present? And how can it then be passed on to the future? Rethink Noritaka Tatehana — In the Hands of Time presents more than an accumulation of works created over 15 years.

By turning attention to the tools, materials, techniques, human hands, and time behind those works, the exhibition reveals how the practice of a single artist exists within a much longer cultural continuum.

Noritaka Tatehana | © NORITAKA TATEHANA K.K. Photo by GION

Handwork is not something left behind in the past. It remains alive by passing from one person’s hands to another, being questioned anew each time and given new form.

Perhaps “Rethink,” the word Tatehana has carried through 15 years of creative practice, is not a call to look backward. Rather, it is a way of connecting past and present while asking what might be created next.