MYM Philosopher Kings of the mode
Saturday, September 19 ― Sunday, December 20, 2026
13:00ー18:00 Open only on weekends and holidays
Related Event
Tripartite Dialogue: Motoaki Shinohara, Takuro Tamayama, Mitsu Sakura on 《Yutaka Matsuzawa’s Method ― Poetry, Object, Revelation, Action, and Vanishing》
Saturday, September 26, 2026, 14:00–16:00
at Kyoto International Community House, Community salon
Participation Fee: 1,000 yen (Please pay in cash on the day; a small gift will be provided)
How to Register: Please email info@galleryten-kyoto.com (Limited to the first 22 applicants)
Work by Mitsu Sakura, inspired by Motoaki Shinohara’s text “A Mandala Is a Spacesuit for the Soul”.
The meeting of the three artists comprising “MYM”—Motoaki Shinohara, Yutaka Matsuzawa, and Mitsu Sakura—dates back to the 2003 exhibition 《Yū-Mitsu-Hō》 (The Yutaka & Mitsu Method) held at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art. That exhibition, a collaborative showcase of poetry and art by Matsuzawa and Sakura, garnered significant attention and was even featured on the NHK Educational TV program ”Sunday Museum”.
This exhibition focuses on two enigmatic personal letters sent by Yutaka Matsuzawa (1922–2006) to Sakura around the time of that earlier exhibition; these letters will be shown to the public here for the first time. Under the theme “Philosopher Kings of the Mode,” proposed by Shinohara, philosopher and poet Motoaki Shinohara (b. 1950) and artist Mitsu Sakura (b. 1967), who explores poetry through contemporary art, will present both new and existing objects.
Additionally, Takuro Tamayama (b. 1990)—a young artist who is achieving remarkable success overseas —will present a special work commissioned by Sakura. He will also participate in a related event, joining Shinohara and Sakura in a discussion about the method of Yutaka Matsuzawa, a global master of conceptual art.
Over the course of nearly a quarter of a century, what has changed, and what has remained the same? We hope you will join the artists in experiencing the “loneliness” (or “sabishimi”) found in the “interval between the now and the once”—a concept central to Shinohara’s philosophy. We look forward to welcoming you to the gallery as Kyoto transitions from early autumn to early winter.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to The Estate of Yutaka Matsuzawa for their exceptional cooperation in making this exhibition possible.
An excerpt from the conclusion of ” A Mandala Is a Spacesuit for the Soul,” a text of 2,222 Japanese characters written by Motoaki Shinohara specifically for this exhibition.
《The great French poet Mallarmé once said that all the world exists to culminate in a single book. Yet, the word “book” tends to conjure the image of a bound volume. Viewed differently, however, a mandala is a book consisting of but a single page. In terms of brevity, nothing could be more concise. And yet, it teems with all the sacred figures of the cosmos; in that sense, nothing could be more vast. If we consider the Two Mandalas together, we have a book of merely two pages—bound, perhaps, by nothing other than the thread of Sabi. The soul yearns with a sense of Sabi―that quiet, wistful melancholy. Yet it is precisely through this Sabi that the soul, while renewing itself, feels a deep, nostalgic longing. The mandala may well serve as a spacesuit for the soul.》
Work by Mitsu Sakura, inspired by Motoaki Shinohara’s text “A Mandala Is a Spacesuit for the Soul”.