H-MOCA 5th Anniversary

2025.4.4(FRI) ― 2026.3.31(TUE)
  • NARA Yoshitomo, A to Z Memorial Dog, 2007Photo: Naoya Hatakeyama ©︎Yoshitomo Nara

    NARA Yoshitomo, A to Z Memorial Dog, 2007
    Photo: Naoya Hatakeyama ©︎Yoshitomo Nara

  • SATO Risa, I who am empty again today #3 (moon, heart), 2024Installation view: Museum on EchigoTsumari, MonET

    SATO Risa, I who am empty again today #3 (moon, heart), 2024
    Installation view: Museum on EchigoTsumari, MonET

In 2025, Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art will celebrate the fifth anniversary of our opening in 2020. This year, in addition to two exhibitions, we will hold a variety of programs, including a three-day special event on July 11.

【Exhibitions】
5th Anniversary Exhibition Plastic Utopia: Our New Ecosystem
Period:
[Part1]2025.4.4 ― 7.7
[Part2]2025.7.11 ― 11.16

Sugito Hiroshi *Title TBD
Period:2025. 12. 5 ― 2026. 5. 17

From much-loved local historic brick building to contemporary art museum

©︎Naoya Hatakeyama

Constructed during the Meiji and Taisho eras (c. 1907–23) as a sake brewery, and used to brew cider after the war, this historic building standing for over a century was renovated and reopened as the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art in 2020. The staging here of three Nara Yoshitomo exhibitions during the 2000s prior to the building’s rebirth was a major factor in the eventual emergence of Hirosaki-MoCA. Architect Tane Tsuyoshi was engaged to renovate the building in accordance with a concept of “continuous memories.”

Diverse offerings since day one

Jean-Michel OTHONIEL, The Knot of Eden, 2020
Photo: ToLoLo studio

Since opening, the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art has staged two special exhibitions each year devoted to the work of artists domestic and international. Hirosaki-MoCA also runs the Hirosaki Exchange program, designed to rediscover the creative attractions of the local region, plus a variety of learning programs. A busy schedule of events including film screenings and live music, plus use of the museum as a venue for hire, has helped to attract a total of 270,000 visitors to date. The collection currently (March 2025) consists of 167 works by 25 artists/artist units from Japan and further afield, mainly in the form of works commissioned specifically for the museum.

Exhibitions to date
2020:
Thank You Memory: From Cidre to Contemporary Art
Tsuyoshi Ozawa All Return: “Come back in a hundred years’ time. After a hundred years you’ll understand.”
2021:
Apple Cycle / Cosmic Seed
Hirosaki Encounters
2022:
Ryoji Ikeda | solo exhibition
Hello, How Can We Do a Nara Yoshitomo Show? Documents on Nara Yoshitomo’s Hirosaki Exhibitions 2002-2006
2023:
OHMAKI Shinji – Before and After the Horizon
MATSUYAMA Tomokazu: Fictional Landscape
2024:
NINAGAWA Mika with EiM: Where Humanity Meets Nature
Taguchi Art Collection + Hirosaki Museum Contemporary Art How Did You Come into the World?

Fifth anniversary theme: ”Curious Hirosaki, Curious Art”

In Japanese the “Curious” of the theme “Curious Hirosaki, Curious Art” is the phrase ki ni naru, which here means to be curious; and with a different character for ki, means fruit growing on a tree. The curiosity expressed by ki ni naru drives us to make contact with worlds we never knew existed. By running multiple programs including exhibitions, and events in partnership with the community, the museum aims to offer a constant stream of encounters with new kinds of artistic expression, new things tangible and intangible, and new people.
At the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art we hope the artworks and programs here will give everyone, from those who live in Hirosaki, to those visiting the city for the first time, an opportunity to learn more about our society, and that these offerings will also “bear fruit” in the form of energy to nurture our next era as a museum, and a society. To be a museum that arouses curiosity, a museum many want to visit, and from there, that helps to cultivate people, community, and culture: as a museum growing alongside the community, our goal is to be not only a repository of memories, but a maker of future memories.

Fifth anniversary logo

Graphic designer Hattori Kazunari, who supplied the museum’s logo and visual imagery, has created a new logo for the fifth anniversary: a design marking the first five years of a history that we are confident will continue for another hundred and beyond.

Outline

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