~ Akito Okunaka, Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver, Shuntaro Tanikawa, Non, Maurizio Cattelan and others will participate, connecting the Expo site with the rest of Osaka through art ~

Study: Osaka Kansai International Art Festival Executive Committee (ARTLOGUE Inc., Head Office: Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture, CEO: Suzuki Daisuke) is pleased to announce the second wave of participating artists for Study: Osaka Kansai International Art Festival 2025.

 

A variety of artists from Japan and abroad will gather at "Study: Osaka Kansai International Art Festival 2025," an international art festival that connects the city to the Osaka-Kansai Expo through the power of art. Artists from across genres, including Akito Okunaka, Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver, Shuntaro Tanikawa, Non, and Maurizio Cattelan, will exhibit their works in various locations around Osaka.

*The full opening (including the Expo site) will be on Sunday, April 13, 2025.
*Please note that tickets for this art festival will not grant admission to the Osaka, Kansai Expo.

Click here for the ticket page for "Study: Osaka Kansai International Arts Festival 2025"

 

 

This year's event will be themed on "social impact," which refers to the revitalization of culture and the arts, as well as the bringing to light of social issues. As of February 19, 2025, a total of more than 50 curators from 18 countries and five groups will participate. For details, please see the "List of Participating Artists."

 

For an overview of the festival and the concepts of each venue, please also refer to the press release issued on the same day: "Study: Osaka Kansai International Art Festival 2025 to be held at the same time as the Osaka-Kansai Expo! Latest information on venue concepts and exhibition details announced ."

 

■ Participating Curators

Maximillian Lecce

Chief Curator of the "Reshaped Reality" Exhibition
Born in 1984. Since 2015, he has been the director of the Institute for Cultural Exchange in Tübingen, Germany, where he focuses on organizing international exhibitions in the field of modern and contemporary art. After studying liberal arts and business administration at Emerson College in Boston, USA, and Luigi Bocconi University of Commerce in Milan, Italy, he received a Master's in Global Studies from the Erasmus Mundus Consortium of the University of Leipzig, London Business School, and the University of Wrocław in 2011. He has planned and supervised over 40 exhibitions around the world, including "50 Years of Hyperrealist Sculpture" (National Gallery of Australia), "Back to Paradise" (Leopold Museum, Vienna), and "La Bohème, Toulouse-Lautrec and the Masters of Montmartre" (Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle/Saale).

 

Mitsuhiro Kishimoto

Curator of the "Re: Human - The New Human Condition" Exhibition
Born in Osaka Prefecture in 1988. Graduated from the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Kyoto City University of Arts, majoring in painting. Prior to his current position, he worked as an art project coordinator and curator at the Kyoto City University of Arts Gallery @KCUA. He regards artworks as traces of behavior that are inseparable from "life," and curates contemporary art based on the perspectives and experiences he has gained from both his own work production and exhibition planning and management. Recent exhibitions he has curated include the Isadora Neves Marquez exhibition, Tomoaki Ishihara exhibition "SELFIES," and the "Slow Culture" series.

 

Production Zomia

Curator of Kissa Atariya Production Zomia was formed in 2021 as a network of artists, curators, and other arts professionals in Asia. Recent activities include planning Water Crossers (Zomi) - Contemporary Art of the Mekong Region (2021, Semba Excel Building, Osaka). "Zomia" refers to the mountainous regions and people of mainland Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar) and southern China, and was defined by Dutch historian Willem van Schendel as a reference to the Tibetan and Burmese word "Zomi" (highlander) (James C. Scott, Zomia: A History of the World Beyond Nationhood).

 

Yoji Sakuma

Curator of the exhibition "Speculative Music/New Storytelling"
Born in 1996. At Osaka University, he is researching virtual beings and future society design. As director of the Osaka Pavilion, he plans to exhibit "Virtual Beings of the Future" at the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo. He is also the principal investigator of a joint research project between Osaka University and the Japan Science and Technology Agency on future society design. In 2021, he served as team leader in the research for the Moonshot Research and Development Project. He is currently chair of the Future Society Creation Committee of the Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, chairman of the Task Force of the Future Generation Studies Association of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, and a member of the Science Fiction Writers of Japan. In 2022, he received the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award at the Japan Open Innovation Awards, and was selected for Forbes JAPAN 30 UNDER 30 in 2023. He is a specially appointed researcher at the Osaka University Social Solutions Initiative and director of the Osaka Pavilion Promotion Committee for the 2025 Japan World Expo.

 

Yasuo Nakano

Exhibition curator at the National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku, located in Expo Commemoration Park)
Born in Tokyo in 1955. Graduated from Yokohama National University Graduate School (Art Education) in 1981. The theme of his master's thesis was "Education through Art." After working in the preparatory office for the Kawasaki Taro Okamoto Museum of Art in 1994, he became a curator at the Kawasaki Taro Okamoto Museum of Art in 1999. After serving as head of the planning and information department at the Kawasaki City Museum (2005, 2006), he became the chief curator of the Kawasaki Taro Okamoto Museum of Art in 2007. He retired from the museum in March 2016. He organized the "Photographer Michiko Imam" exhibition at the University of Veracruz in Mexico. He has been the chairman of the Kyoto Nijo International Cultural Arts Exchange Association since April 2017.

 

■ Participating Artists

[Venue: "Study: Osaka Kansai International Arts Festival / EXPO PUBLIC ART" at the 2025 World Expo, Japan (Osaka-Kansai Expo)]

Akito Okunaka

Artist. Born in Kyoto in 1981 and currently living there. Co-representative of AoiOa/AO Institute of Arts. Organizer of the Hands-on Art Course at the Kizugawa City Yamashiro Cultural Center.

After graduating from Shizuoka University's Faculty of Education, Okunaka taught art play at the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art and a social welfare facility for the intellectually disabled, before studying modern and contemporary thought and becoming an artist. He received domestic and international funding to undergo long-term training at AIR programs in France, Korea, and China. He has honed his skills in regional art around the country, and is currently presenting his work both in Japan and abroad as an artist who develops experiential large-scale works and workshops.

Main career experience:
2024/WHAT MUSEUM "Okunaka Akito "Synesthesia - The Five Senses Intersecting Through Art" Exhibition, 2023/Gifu Art Festival, Land of Clear Streams, Art Award IN THE CUBE/Awarded both the Kitamura Akiko Award and the Terauchi Yoko Award, 2022/Study: Osaka Kansai International Arts Festival, 2021/Kitakyushu Future Creation Arts Festival ART for SDGs, 2019/LUXELAKESA4 Museum ARIE International Residency Program/Nomura Foundation Arts and Culture Grant, 2017/Rokko Meets Art Organizer Special Award, Moscow International Biennale Parallel Program "Yearning for the Sky", Kawaguchi City Art Gallery Atria "Unraveling the Nature of Air Through Art!", 2016/Kizugawa Art Grand Prix + Citizen's Award, etc.

 

Atsuya Tominaga

Born in Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture. Graduated from Kanazawa College of Art in 1986. Started creating art at Nose Black Granite Quarry (Toyono District, Osaka Prefecture). In 1997, he received a grant from the Pola Art Foundation for overseas training and stayed in Italy to create art (until 1998). In 2013, he began his Love Stone Project around the world. He won the Grand Prize at the 25th UBE Biennale Contemporary Japanese Sculpture Exhibition and has held solo exhibitions both in Japan and abroad. From 2021, he will be running the Love Stone Project-Nagano at the Nagano Prefectural Art Museum.

 

As of February 19th, four groups are scheduled to participate. For details, see "List of Artists".

 

[Venue: Osaka Cultural Center Tempozan (architectural design by Tadao Ando)]

⚫︎“Reshaped Reality” exhibition

Allen Jones (UK)

Born in 1937, Allen Jones is one of the leading figures in British pop art. He studied painting and lithography in London from 1955 to 1960, and eventually created a new medium that was halfway between the three-dimensionality of painting and pure sculptural forms, and sought to free himself from the constraints of the two-dimensionality and rectangularity of the canvas. Several residencies in the United States had a strong influence on his work, including the advertising, illustration and sales methods of new products, and the emergence of American Pop Art. Jones is well known for his erotic depictions of women, and in particular his work "Hatstand, Table, and Chair," which has not only attracted the attention of contemporary feminists, but continues to raise more universal questions about morality and what it means to be a woman.

 

26 groups will participate. For details, see the artist list.

 

[Venue: Nishinari area]

Shuntaro Tanikawa "Poet's Room"

The Cocoroom room will be exhibited as "Poet's Room - A room where Shuntaro Tanikawa writes and you can write too." Poet Shuntaro Tanikawa will sit at a table in this room and exhibit his poem "At Coco Yadoya." A room tour will be held during the art festival.

 

Aung Myat Htay (Myanmar)

Born in Mandalay, Myanmar in 1973. Artist and independent curator. He trained in bronze sculpture from an early age under his father. He received his art education at the state-run Art School and obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Arts and Culture in Yangon. He furthered his research through international residencies in the United States, Europe and Asia. While working as an art lecturer, he explores the possibilities of freedom of expression found in contemporary art, incorporating modern sensibilities into traditional forms to express social messages. He is the founder of the SOCA Alternative Art Learning Programme and is well known in the Myanmar art community as an artist and curator.
Recent major exhibitions include "Consciousness of Realities" (2019, Myanm/art Gallery Space, Yangon, Myanmar), "Dining-Room Opera" (2014, Rooster Gallery, New York, USA), and "Calling Memory" (2012, Koganecho Bazaar 2012, Yokohama, Japan).

 

As of February 19th, about 14 groups are scheduled to participate. For details, see the artist list.

 

[Venue: Semba area]

Satoshi Kawada

Born in Osaka Prefecture in 1987, he lives in Kyoto Prefecture. In 2013, he completed his Master's in Oil Painting at the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Kyoto City University of Arts. He studied fresco painting at university, and has produced and exhibited in various public spaces such as hotels and city halls. He aims to create murals that remember modern society, using the homogenized scenery of urban suburbs as a motif. His major recent solo exhibitions include "Tsukudo Kabuki" (The Triangle, Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, Kyoto, 2024) and "Letters from Beyond" (ARTCOURTGALLERY, Osaka, 2022), and major group exhibitions include "MOT Annual 2024 Island of Kofuku" (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, 2024) and "Fragments of Homo Faber - The Future of People and Manufacturing" (Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Art Museum, 2022).

 

Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver

Born in Shiga Prefecture in 1947, he currently lives in Tokyo. He began his artistic endeavors in 1964 through happenings, and after participating in the Kansai-based artist collective The Play and interacting with Fluxus, he has been mainly active in Europe since the 1990s. He presents performances, sculptures, and drawings that explore the scale and structure of the human body, the symbolism of the biological basis of human beings (DNA, etc.), and various figurative forms. His works consistently question existence and the self, inviting us to consider essential questions that go beyond any existing framework.
Recent major solo exhibitions include "Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver's Cinematic Illumination" (MoMA, New York, 2020) and "Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver EX-SIGN" (Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, 2010). Major group exhibitions include "Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions - Imagining Time" (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, 2020), "On a bien accroché" (Maison Grégoire, Belgium, 2018), "1968: Art in Turbulent Times" (Chiba City Museum of Art, 2018), and "Rethinking Expanded Cinema" (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, 2017).

 

As of February 19th, about 10 groups are scheduled to participate. For details, see the artist list.

 

[Venue: National Museum of Ethnology (inside Expo Commemoration Park)]

Non

Born in Hyogo Prefecture. Actor and artist. Active in a wide range of genres including music, film production, and art. Won the "Best Actress Award" at the 46th Japan Academy Awards for her starring role in the movie "Sakanako". Since 2020, she has been continuously presenting ribbon art. "Yanbaru Art Festival": Giant ribbon art "Butterfly and Gajumaru" (2021) Created ribbon art drawn by the main character Itsuka in the movie "Ribbon", which she wrote, directed, and starred in (2022) "Non Ribbon Exhibition - Creepy, Cute Things." (GALLERY X BY PARCO, Shibuya): "Butterfly in the City" (2022) "ikuno art stay 2023 non ribbon art": 219 kokeshi dolls wrapped in ribbons in "Prototype: The Room of a Red Child" (2023) "Non Ribbon Exhibition: Creepy, Cute Things. (Sendai PARCO): Collaboration with traditional crafts "Kokeshi lanterns" and "Akabeko" (2023). Participate as an invited artist in "Kobe Rokko Meets Art 2024 Beyond". Winner of the "16th Itami Juzo Award" in 2024.

 

[Performing Artist]

New Immigrations B / Masamichi Toyama (CEO of Smiles Co., Ltd. / CEO of The Chain Museum Co., Ltd.)

Formed in October 2023. A new type of band that improvises Masamichi Toyama's poetry with guitar, drums, and theremin. Their first live performance was at GROOVETUBE FES in May 2024. They are expanding their activities one after another, such as appearing on radio, art events (Roppongi Art Night, BENTEN ART NIGHT KABUKICHO), Noh stage, and club events. They have released one album and 14 singles, including a collaboration with Maki Nomiya.

 

List of participating artists (in alphabetical order) *As of February 19, 2025

 

■ Overview of "Study: Osaka Kansai International Arts Festival 2025"

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・Official website and social media

Study: Osaka Kansai International Art Festival 2025 Official Website: https://osaka-kansai.art/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/study_okiaf/
X (old Twitter): https://x.com/study_OKIAF
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StudyOKIAF/
Official LINE account: https://lin.ee/YRCAlUD

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■Company Profile

ARTLOGUE Inc.
・Representative: ARTLOGUE Inc. CEO Daisuke Suzuki ・Head office location: Kita-ku, Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture ・Established: July 7, 2017 ・Business operations: Planning and management of "Study: Osaka Kansai International Art Festival" / Planning and management of web media "ARTLOGUE" and "Art Tourism"

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■ Contact Information

Artlogue Inc. Public Relations Office Name: Tomimatsu & Ichikawa Email address: study-pr@artlogue.org
Inquiry form: https://osaka-kansai.art/pages/contact