Stepping away from BnA_WALL exclusive news, we take a look at what’s going on in Kyoto, at WALL’s sister hotel – BnA Alter Museum.


BnA Alter Museum ART ROOMS

BnA Alter Museum is pleased to present its newest project/event, “Continuous Project / Own Installation”, an exhibition on the theme of installation art and its ownership. The event is being held at the staircase gallery (SCG), where we have presented installation works in various special exhibitions – results of Alter Museum’s artist-in-residence program.

The five artists that helped bring this project to life: Buku Akiyama, Kensho Tanbara, Ryosuke Higo, Satoko Matsui, and Soichiro Mihara, created and exhibited their works in the 5.4 meter-high atrium of the 10-story building.

In addition, Mayu Hiyama, who presides over the exhibition trading project, “D4C” (2019~), has been asked to collaborate externally and will present a sales contract for the installation works.

The exhibition will consist of two main projects:
1. The production project of the installation itself.
2. Owning said installation.

Be sure to stop by and partake in this experience while you’re in the Kyoto area. It’s not to be missed!


Exhibition main visual (Design: Atsushi Kuroizaki)

Event Information:

Venue: BnA Alter Museum SCG
Dates: October 29, 2022 (Sat) ~ May 7, 2023 (Sun)
Hours: 11:00 – 20:00

Admission: Adults 1,000 yen / University students 800 yen / Junior high and high school Students 500 yen / Elementary school students and younger free
Half price for visitors with an *ACK ticket
You can enter the exhibition as many times as you like during the exhibition period. Identification required.

Planning: Kazutaka Tsutsui
Cooperation: Mayu Hiyama
Supported by: ACK Cooperation Program
Organizer: BnA Alter Museum

Related Event

“Exhibition & ART ROOM Tour”

The exhibition organizers will lead visitors on a guided tour of the exhibition and several rooms of the museum where visitors can stay overnight.

Dates: November 17, 18, 19, and 20, 2022
Time: 17:00- on all days
Fee: Included in the admission fee to the exhibition
Capacity: 10 people per tour
Advance reservations required.

How to apply for tours: Please send an e-mail to with the subject “Tour” and the name of the tour.
Please send an e-mail to scg@bnaaltermuseum.com with the title “Tour” and your name, telephone number, preferred date, and number of participants in the body of the message.

“Is it possible to own a situation?”

Artist Introductions


Buku Akiyama “Composition No.13 by BnA Alter Museum fixtures” Photo by Kiyotoshi Takashima

Buku Akiyama

Since 2001, Buku Akiyama has been creating works as part of the “Composition” series, improvising spaces in galleries, stores, warehouses, public halls, outdoor parks, event halls, libraries, and other locations using only the equipment available at those locations.

Since 2016, Akiyama has been creating works that improvise with the equipment available at the site, and then, during the exhibition period, he creates a new work by himself or with the help of collaborators.

Since 2012, he has been creating “Situations”, a series of works in which objects and places correspond one to one.

In 2017, he began “Placement,” a series of works in which objects and their places correspond to each other on a one-to-one basis.

In 2017, he started “#table_arrangement,” in which he, improvising, combines tableware and tableware from restaurants and cafes, and posts photos on social networking sites.


Kensho Tambara and Kenta Ishige “And yet we continue to breathe.” (2020, ANB Tokyo) Installation view Photo by Shintaro Yamanaka (Qsyum!)

Kensho Tambara

Kensho Tambara is a writer and curator born in Tokyo in 1992. He graduated from Harvard University, Department of Art History.

After working in Boston as an artist focusing on contemporary community rites of passage and rituals, Tambara returned to Japan in 2005.

After working as an artist in Boston, he returned to Japan in 2005 to work as an artist and curator in Japan.

Tambara focuses on creating site-specific works and exhibitions with the aim of inducing a change in the viewer’s gaze.

In addition to his artistic activities, he has curated exhibitions at galleries and other venues, and is the founder of the art space Shin-Okubo UGO, as well as a member and representative director of the Open Art Consortium.

Since December 2009, he has been the program director of “Sonoaida #New Yurakucho”


Ryosuke Higo “Sandy Island” 2020 Mixed Media, Chinese Contemporary Art Gallery, Chinese Art Museum, Sapporo Photo by Emi Nakada

Ryosuke Higo

Born in 1995 in Hokkaido, Japan. Doctoral student at Kyoto City University of Arts, Graduate School of Fine Arts, majoring in Fine Arts, Conceptual Design area.

He considers blind spots in circulating information, such as “phantom islands mislabeled on Google Maps” and “nonexistent words,” as relics, and explores these phenomena and events that society and individuals create either unknowingly or intentionally.

Main Exhibitions

“Kyoto Art for Tomorrow 2021”
Criterium 97: Ryosuke Higo (Mizuhae Art Tower, Ibaraki, Japan), 2008
KYOTOGRAPHIE Kyoto International Photography Festival 2019 KG+” (GALLERY Ann / Kyoto), 18
New Cosmos of Photography 2018 at Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in 2006.


Satoko Matsui, “Home Interior (Room)” 2021, wood, carpet, lighting fixture, variable sizes Photo by Tomoki Moriya

Satoko Matsui

Born 1981 in Hyogo Prefecture and raised in Osaka Prefecture, Matsui graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts in 2006 with a degree in oil painting. She has been researching structures that create absent spaces, and her works are mainly installations.

In recent years, she has been working on the motif of a contemporary Japanese house, clothed in the texture of a Japanese house.

Recent major exhibitions include
2021 “Seian Arts Attention 14 Re:Home”, 2019 solo exhibition “Home Sweet Home” at MEDIA SHOP gallery 2 (Kyoto)
and 2018 solo exhibition “Model House” at Kyoto City University of Arts Gallery @KCUA, solo exhibition “Abstract House – One Room” at Gallery Kei
Gallery Keifu (Kyoto), etc.


Soichiro Mihara “Study of Air” Photo by Masamasa Sawano

Soichiro Mihara

Soichiro Mihara was born in Tokyo in 1980 and currently lives and works in Kyoto.

He presents a system that is open to the world and attempts to reinterpret materials and phenomena such as sound, bubbles, radiation, rainbows, microorganisms, moss, air currents, soil, and electrons as art.

Since 2011, he has been developing a project on the theme of “blank space” to examine the relationship between technology and society, both in Japan and abroad.

Since 2013, he has been participating in residency programs from the arctic circle to tropical rainforests, from military borders to bio-art labs, and from the center of art to extreme environments.

His solo exhibitions include “A World Full of Blankness” (Kunstraum Kreuzberg
Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Germany, 2013/Kyoto Art Center, 2016).

Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK)

This exhibition is part of the Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK) program.

Art Collaboration Kyoto is an art fair held in Kyoto under the theme of “Contemporary Art and Collaboration”.

ACK is one of the largest art fairs in Japan specializing in contemporary art, and is characterized by its collaboration between Japanese and international galleries, government and private sectors, and art and other fields.
URL

BnA Alter Museum

Address: 267-1 Tenma-cho, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto-shi, Kyoto
Access: 5 min. walk from Hankyu Kawaramachi Station / 6 min. walk from Keihan Gion-Shijo Station / 2 min. walk from Kawaramachi Matsubara bus stop
Tel: 075-748-1278
BnA Alter Museum