Our next stop is Tokyo. Located in the Roppingi Hills Complex, the tower is visible throughout Tokyo. On the top floor, we have the Mori Art Museum, which was established by a contemporary art enthusiast Minoru Mori. As a businessman and urban development visionary, Minoru Mori had a dream of making the Mori Tower a lively and dynamic building. To make it an inherent part of the city culture, he founded the Mori art Museum in 2003. The building has achieved its aims and has become an arts and culture complex. Now it is one of the most important buildings of Tokyo and a must-see place for art lovers and tourists.
Built by Richard Gluckman, the Mori Art Museum is an exceptional museum in many ways. Unlike other corporate museums, it didn’t start to showcase its founder’s collection. Additionally, Mori Art Museum doesn’t have a permanent gallery to exhibit a permanent collection in its space.
Actually, the museum started to build a collection of Contemporary Asian Art in 2005, since then it grew with works acquired, as now it features important artists like Le Corbusier, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Takashi Murakami. Despite this, the Mori Art Museum has an aim to emphasize the artists over its collection; therefore it only presents selected works from the collection on a regular basis.
Since its opening, the museum hosted many important artists from Asia and beyond. Its exhibitions featured iconic domestic and international artists such as Bill Viola, Takashi Murakami, Yayomi kusama and Tim Burton in its highly visual, engaging and rich spaces. In addition to this, it has been running a MAM Project (solo exhibitions) and MAM Screening (video works) to support lesser-known and emerging artists.
Another element that makes this museum exceptional is its Tokyo City View, which provides the visitors a panoramic view of the city from the 52nd floor. The museum hosts an exhibition within the Sky Gallery, where visitors can appreciate the art and stunning view at the same time. It also has a souvenir shop, The Sun and The Moon restaurants, which occasionally offer themed menus in parallel to the current exhibitions.
The Mori Art Museum’s “Art + Life” motto becomes evident in Leandro Erlich’s recent exhibition entitled ‘’Seeing and Believing’’. This special exhibition which took place between 18th of November-1st of April 2018 was the largest solo exhibition devoted to the artist. It provided new ways of seeing our world and reality through optic illusion and sound effects. Just like this exhibition, other Mori exhibitions offer new ways of looking at the world around us. And then it becomes possible for all of us to realize the importance of an enriched society where art relates to all aspects of life.
Simge Erdoğan