7 best art exhibitions showing in Osaka and Kyoto right now

Kagami is an awe-inspiring project conceived and created during the final four years of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s life. Here, visitors don special headsets to experience a digitally reconstructed performance by Sakamoto at a grand piano within a mixed-reality space. This allows for a fully immersive enjoyment of the performance, at a proximity that’s impossible in a traditional concert setting. The experience will also be enhanced by dreamy 3D visuals that respond to the music. 

The exhibition premiered in New York in 2023 and has since toured London, Taipei, Singapore, Melbourne and several other international cities to critical acclaim. Now finally arriving in Japan, this exhibition will feature an expanded version titled ‘Kagami+’. The venue will be designed for a multi-sensory immersion incorporating video, photography, text and even a scent blended by Sakamoto himself.

In addition to the main Kagami+ experience, visitors will be able to explore other exhibits that offer deeper insight into Sakamoto’s music...

Jeff Koons occupies a singular position in contemporary art. Known for his polished surfaces, bold iconography and unapologetic embrace of popular imagery, the American artist has continually blurred the boundaries between high culture and mass consumption. By elevating everyday objects – vacuum cleaners, basketballs, cartoon figures – into the realm of fine art, Koons interrogates value, desire and collective memory. Held in major museum collections worldwide, his works function as both mirrors and provocations, reflecting the aspirations and contradictions of contemporary society.

This exhibition at Espace Louis Vuitton Osaka is organised as part of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s ‘Hors-les-murs’ program and brings together seven significant sculptures and paintings drawn from the foundation’s collection, tracing the evolution of Koons’s practice from the 1980s onward...