Düsseldorf is home to the third largest Japanese community in Europe, following London and Paris. Building on the success of the 2024 presentation of the anonymous art project from Tokyo, Art Düsseldorf continues its focus on Japan.
In 2025, the anonymous art project will once again be part of the fair. Under the curation of Yoko Nose, the contemporary Japanese art scene will be highlighted, featuring works by Norimichi Hirakawa, Hiraku Suzuki, and four emerging artists. Yoko Nose was a curator at the Toyota Municipal Museum from 2017 to 2024 and served as a curator for the Aichi Triennale in 2019. From 2025, she will take on the role of Senior Curator at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery. Her recent major exhibitions include Ho Tzu Nyen: Night March of Hundred Monsters (2021–22), Cat’s Narrow Road (2023), and Wunderkammer to Come: From the Uncompleted, a Beginning (2024). She has also contributed numerous articles to Japanese art journals and online magazines.
Following the successful presentation of the anonymous art project from Tokyo in 2024, Art Düsseldorf 2025 will continue its focus on Japan with numerous Japanese positions – befitting the location Düsseldorf. Our Japan Guide takes you through the fair, which artists from Japan will be exhibited and what you need to know about this year’s positions!
The anonymous art project collection is exhibiting again this year at Art Düsseldorf in the Kaltstahlhalle. Exhibited artists are: Norimichi Hirakawa, Hiraku Suzuki, Nanae Mitobe, Mami Yamasaki, Nami Okada and Koga Miura. The exhibition is curated by Yoko Nose.
Nose was curator at the Toyota Municipal Museum from 2017 to 2024 and curator of the Aichi Triennale in 2019. From 2025, she will work as senior curator at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery.
Norimichi Hirakawa (*1982) works with calculations and skillfully integrates these mathematical technologies into his installations. He has received major awards such as the Excellence Award in the Interactive Art Category at Ars Electronica 2008 and the Excellence Award in the Art Category at the Japan Media Arts Festival in 2004 and 2009. Read our exclusive interview with the artist here.
Hiraku Suzuki (*1978) explores the intersection between painting, language and space, often using media that reflect light. Among other things, Suzuki has organized the Drawing Tube platform and has been working as a professor at Tokyo University of Art (Graduate School of Fine Arts) since 2021, as well as a visiting professor at the Wrocław Academy of Fine Arts in Poland.
Nanae Mitobe is a contemporary painter known for her expressive and thick applications of oil paint, which she uses to explore our society and its emotions and identities. Mitobe’s artworks have been exhibited at the Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art (Gwangju, South Korea), Diesel Art Gallery (Tokyo) and Tokyo Opera City. She has also collaborated with brands such as Gucci and Casio G-SHOCK.
Mami Yamasaki (*1987) focuses on the interplay of light, memory and emotion reflected through urban landscapes. Her works are exhibited at the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art (Nagoya, Japan) and the Gunma Museum of Modern Art (Takasaki, Japan).
Nami Okada (*1991) explores memories and nostalgia through her art, creating a sense of déjà vu in the viewer.
Koga Miura (*1997) focuses on the threshold between manual and mechanical processes with his two-dimensional, number-generated artworks. Miura was a finalist for the Shell Art Award (2020) and received the Graduate School Award at Kyoto University (2021).
Noriko Ambe: A Piece of Flat Globe Vol45, 2024, cut on Yupo paper, 15x15x9cm, AOA;87.
A few steps further, at stand B01, the AOA;87 gallery is presenting a solo exhibition by Japanese artist Noriko Ambe within the LIMINAL STATE section. Her art explores the difference between the artworks and the artist’s mental world, creating an interplay between the material and the spiritual, as well as the present and the past. Ambe uses Yupo paper, a synthetic paper made in Japan from synthetic resin, as her central medium. The cuttting and layering of the material evoke familiar and topographical forms that cannot be precisely categorized, causing the viewer to move between visibility and invisibility.
The centerpiece of the stand is the “Curtain Piece”, which stretches across the entire stand. The installation invites you to move around in a hollow space thanks to the unique shadows cast. In the Japanese concept of 間 ma = emptiness, an empty space full of potential and atmosphere is interpreted.
Furthermore, parts of Ambe’s series “Zero” are presented, a series of precisely cut books that focus on the interplay of spatial distortion and the integration of the given narratives.
Takako Saiko: You and Me Shop, 1994 330x390x150cm. boa-basedonart.
One of our sculpture spots is also by a Japanese position: Takako Saito, one of the artists closely associated with Fluxus, the avant-garde art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. At Sculpture Spot S02, you can look at her sculpture “You and Me Shop”, a little shop which invites you to become creative yourself and interact with it. The shop also includes editions and objects by the artist herself. Right next to her sculpture is boa-basedonart’s booth, a Düsseldorf gallery, which also showcases a few of Takako Saito’s artworks.
Gajin Foujita: Angelic Intervention, 2023, Buchmann Galerie.
At stand number B03, the Buchmann Galerie is exhibiting, among others, the US and Japanese artist Gajin Fujita. Fujita combines Renaissance images of the West with Asian mythology and contemporary street culture, incorporating graffiti and iPhone aesthetics. His inspiration from the East comes from techniques such as anime or 浮世絵 ukiyo-e (images of the floating world) as well as elements from Japanese mythology, such as geishas and 妖怪 yokai (demons). Fujita’s works combine cultures, but also show cultural and class-related contrasts that reflect his life in Los Angeles.
Asana Fujikawa: Seelenbehalter weich, 2022, Kreamik glasiert, 14x9x4cm, Galerie Friese.
The Japanese artist Asana Fujikawa (*1981) will be represented by Galerie Friese at stand B05. Fujikawa combines and processes themes from Japanese and European mythology, as well as Shinto and current politics through her ceramic figures. She reinterprets these fairy tale elements and creates them as main characters in ceramics.
Haruko Maeda: Self Portrait with Cat and Grandma in a Jar, 2021, oil on canvas.
Elektrohalle Rhomberg is presenting a solo exhibition by Japanese artist Haruko Maeda (*1983) in the NEXT section. Maeda combines Shinto traditions from her homeland with Western concepts. She moves between religious iconographies from different cultures to address universal questions of life and death. The motif of the memento mori is always aligned with Maeda’s subtle humor, as in the self-portrait “with cat and grandma in a glass”, where the artist depicts herself with her cat and the ashes of her deceased grandmother.
Simon Fujiwara: Once Upon a Who?, 2021, still frame from single-channel video installation; sofa, three stools, 4′48″, color, sound. Julia Stoschek Foundation.
Our guide continues in the Alte Schmiedehalle, where the Julia Stoschek Foundation is showing the video installation Once Upon A Who? (2021) by Simon Fujiwara at stand G11. The figure Who the Baer explores identity formation, cultural appropriation and media representation between digital images.
Shoko Morita: Agave, 2015, oil Acrylic Panel, 360x310mm, Masumi Sasaki Gallery.
Last but not least, you can visit Masumi Sasaki Gallery at booth H18, the first Japanese gallery to exhibit at Art Düsseldorf in the NEXT section. Following in the footsteps of artist Takashi Murakami, the artists draw inspiration from Japanese pop culture, such as manga and superflat, but also from modern Japanese art techniques, such as 浮世絵 ukiyo-e (images of the floating world).
Isamu Gakiya, influenced by his origins in the US-occupied prefecture of Okinawa, reflects a myriad of values in his artworks, as well as the high amount of information we are exposed to. He explores themes such as loneliness and love, as well as religion and absurdity.
Makito Takagi focuses on the depiction of beings and their ecosystems that are otherwise too small to be perceived by the human eye. His theme is “the smallest unit in art and its discovery”.
Shoko Morita‘s art creates a harmony between the line and the surface of the image. Her technique involves scratching and stencilling a ceramic-like base, which makes Morita’s works particularly expressive.
