Exhibition ‘Okamoto Taro – The 100^th Anniversary of His Birth’ Opened

On March 8, the exhibition titled, ‘Okamoto Taro – The 100^th anniversary of His Birth’, opened at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (until May 8). Commemorating the centenary of the birth of OKAMOTO Tarō, renowned for works including the ‘Tower of the Sun’, known as the symbol of Expo ’70, the exhibition offered a retrospective overview of his entire oeuvre, featuring approximately 130 works. It consisted of nine sections: Prologue ‘Non!’; Chapter 1 ‘Confrontation with Picasso’; Chapter 2 ‘Confrontation with “Pretty” Art’; Chapter 3 ‘Confrontation with “Wabi-Sabi”’; Chapter 4 ‘Confrontation with “Progress and Harmony for Mankind”’; Chapter 5 ‘Confrontation with the War’; Chapter 6 ‘Confrontation with the Consumer Society’; Chapter 7 ‘Confrontation with Okamoto Taro’; and Epilogue ‘The Spirit of Okamoto Taro Inherited’. The exhibition traced his consistent challenge to established values chronologically. Amidst recent vigorous reappraisals, including the opening of the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum and Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kawasaki, this exhibition became an ambitious project seeking to reconsider Okamoto’s contemporary position. (Japanese)