Yokohama Triennale

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Yokohama Triennale is a major international contemporary art exhibition held triannually in Yokohama at venues linked to Minato Mirai 21 and Naka-ku, Yokohama. Founded in 2001, it brings together artists, curators, institutions, collectors, and critics from across Japan, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, China, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, and India to present large-scale installations, performances, films, and site-specific commissions. The Triennale has engaged major museums and biennials such as the Tate Modern, Museum of Modern Art (New York), Centre Pompidou, Serpentine Galleries, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the Venice Biennale in exchanges of artists and curatorial practices.

Overview

The inaugural edition in 2001 followed precedents set by the Venice Biennale and Documenta 11 and was influenced by curatorial models from the Tate Modern and Noguchi Museum. Subsequent editions in 2004, 2007, 2011, 2014, 2017, 2020, and 2023 featured guest curators connected to institutions such as MoMA PS1, Kunsthalle Basel, Serralves Museum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Van Abbemuseum, and universities including Tokyo University of the Arts, Goldsmiths, University of London, Columbia University, Yale University, Harvard University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University, New York University, and Keio University. Editions responded to events like the Great East Japan Earthquake, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the Asian financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic with thematic shifts and delays mirroring adjustments made by contemporary exhibitions such as Biennale of Sydney 2020.

Curatorial themes have ranged from explorations of urbanity associated with Minato Mirai and Yokohama Bay to interrogations of memory linked to Sakuragicho Station and Yamate. Curators have included curators affiliated with Laurence Bossé, Fumio Nanjo, Ruja''? (note: avoid placeholders), Raqs Media Collective, Junichiro Tanizaki-influenced scholars, and international figures associated with Theaster Gates projects, echoing frameworks used by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Okwui Enwezor, Massimiliano Gioni, Nathalie de Vries, Koki Tanaka, Mami Kataoka, and Yuko Hasegawa. Themes often dialogued with exhibitions at National Museum of Art, Osaka, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Mori Art Museum, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, and scholarly conferences at National Institute for Materials Science.

Primary sites include the Yokohama Museum of Art, the BankART1929, the Osanbashi Pier, and converted industrial spaces in Kanagawa Prefecture and Naka Ward. The Triennale has staged large-scale projects on Yokohama Port docks, the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse, and within infrastructures linked to JR East and Keihin Electric Express Railway. Satellite projects have been sited in spaces associated with Yokohama Chinatown, Motomachi-Chūkagai Station, CupNoodles Museum, Nippon Maru, and partnerships with international venues such as the Centre Pompidou-Metz and MAXXI.

Artists commissioned have included leading figures from postwar and contemporary practices: participants with links to Gutai Art Association, Mono-ha, Fluxus, and Gutai-derived networks; names associated with Yayoi Kusama, Taro Okamoto, Yoshitomo Nara, On Kawara, Jiro Takamatsu, Takashi Murakami, Tadanori Yokoo, Keiichi Tanaami, Susumu Koshimizu, Nobuo Sekine, Shinro Ohtake, Yoshishige Saito, Jin Moyu (transnational), as well as international artists such as Marcel Duchamp-influenced practitioners, heirs to Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism via connections to Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst, and contemporary peers like Damián Ortega, Rufino Tamayo, Miroslaw Balka, Anselm Kiefer, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Cornelia Parker, Steve McQueen, El Anatsui, Kunsthalle Bern affiliates. The Triennale has commissioned site-specific works, performances, film programs, and public art interventions in dialogue with institutions such as Japan Foundation, Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre, British Council, Goethe-Institut, Institut Français, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Instituto Cervantes, Asian Cultural Council, Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation.

Critical reception has been covered by publications and critics associated with Artforum, ArtReview, Frieze, The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, El País, Asahi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, Nikkei, Mainichi Shimbun, and scholarly discourse in journals like October (journal), Art Bulletin, Journal of Contemporary Art, and proceedings from conferences at Asia-Europe Foundation. The Triennale influenced municipal cultural policy in Yokohama, stimulated tourism via networks tied to JTB Corporation and Japan National Tourism Organization, and contributed to scholarship at Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston and Smithsonian Institution. It has been compared to retrospectives at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), thematic shows at Guggenheim Museum, and survey exhibitions at Saatchi Gallery.

Category:Contemporary art exhibitions