The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo was opened in March, 1995 in Kiba Park, to the East of Tokyo, as a center for the systematic study, collection, preservation and display of contemporary art, focusing primarily on postwar Japanese art but encompassing a wide range of subjects from both here and abroad. Prior to this there had been no single institute in Tokyo that dealt comprehensively with contemporary art and a need had long been felt for the establishment of a facility to trace the various trends in the field. To this end, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government drew up plans during the 1980s for the establishment of a museum whose role would be to introduce the rapidly changing trends in contemporary art on a worldwide scale. In achieving this, it took for its model the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum which, since its establishment in 1926, has played an important role in providing avenue for the introduction of the latest art forms they developed. The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum activities center around exhibitions, and its collection of approximately 3,000 art works and 58,000 rare book materials, has been inherited by the Museum of Contemporary Art, providing a valuable source of information on the history of various creative activities, while also presenting a comprehensive overview of the times.