Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art

While I was working in Japan, I took some time off and my husband and I traveled to Kyoto. As is the case on most of our urban vacations, I dragged him to the Kyoto Modern Art Museum (MOMAK, as they call it), only to find out that they were closed.  It was not a day they were normally supposed to be closed, so I was a more than a little irritated, which my husband, no doubt, can confirm!  The Tokyo Modern Art Museum had been a bit of a disappointment - I was interested in understanding the modern art movement in Japan specifically, however, what we saw at the Tokyo museum was mostly european style modern art simply made by Japanese artists.  I wanted to see Japanese modern art and was sure the MOMAK was going to deliver.

Once we realized we were not getting into the MOMAK, I begrudgingly agreed to go across the street to the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art at my husband's suggestion.  Boy, was I glad we went.  It just so happened that some students were setting up their textile arts for their graduation exhibit.  It didn't actually open until the next day, but they let us wander through anyway.  What we saw just blew my mind.  There are only a few spots left in my memory anymore (thank you chemo-brain) and this exhibit definitely made it in.

Kyoto Municipal Museum. Click on the photo to see more images from the exhibit.

By the way, we did finally make it to the MOMAK.  They had a much better collection of Japanese modern art than the Tokyo museum, however, nothing that took the place in my memory of the textile art exhibit.