While the globalization of the arts and ideas has smoothed geographical and cultural borders, the Japanese archipelago has retained a very distinctive style, certain facets of which are little known. Through the concept of Japan-ness (or “Japanity“) the architect Arata Isozaki attempted to capture the distinctly Japanese characteristics that connect the creations of the architects and artists of this country. It is this changing singularity, sometimes open and porous to external influences, sometimes withdrawn into itself, often struck by history and nature (conflicts, crises, earthquakes, nuclear disasters...) and thus always forced to redefine itself, which the Centre Pompidou-Metz is highlighting in its Japan Season.

From September 2017 to May 2018, three exhibitions and a dozen gatherings, concerts, and performances take a fresh look at Japan, from the modern history of its architecture to its most recent artistic expressions. The first exhibition, JAPAN-NESS, explores seven decades of Japanese architectural culture, from 1945 to the present day, with a layout design by Sou Fujimoto in the heart of the Shigeru Ban-designed building. It questions how the Japanese city, and its sprawling urbanism since the postwar reconstruction, defined new ways of living. With which models and in what social, political and cultural context did its most important architects emerge – Kenzo Tange, Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma ?

Dedicated to the Japanese visual arts since the Osaka universal exposition in 1970, JAPANORAMA, with a layout designed by the architectural firm SANAA, takes over from the last cross-cutting exhibition devoted to Japan by Centre Pompidou in 1986: Avant-garde Art in Japan, 1910-1970. Japanorama takes a look inside four decades of contemporary art and the affirmation of a visual culture. Designed like an archipelago, this exploration reveals a multifaceted Japan, not limiting itself to
the cliché of the binary opposition of Zen minimalism (Mono-Ha) and surging KawaiiPop. Contemporary art in Japan is also about the poetics of resistance, militant commitment, a common reflection, shared with fashion, on relationships with the body and post- humanism, or on the place of the individual in society, the notion of community, the relationship to an island tradition and dialogue with subcultures. Together with major figures such as Nobuyoshi Araki, Rei Kawakubo, Tetsumi Kudo, Yayoi Kusama, Issey Miyake, Daido Moriyama, Takashi Murakami, Lee Ufan, Tadanori Yokoo..., the exhibition invites visitors to discover artists rarely seen outside Japan.

This diversity is also expressed in TEN EVENINGS, a programme of meetings and shows that will bring together some of the most important figures from the Japanese arts scene, such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Saburo Teshigawara, Yasumasa Morimura and Ryoji Ikeda, and in a third exhibition, at the start of next year, devoted to the collective DUMB TYPE, pioneers of new technologies used in furtherance of art.