The weather was not that great this Saturday. It rained all morning and stopped at around noon. Probably put a bit of a damper on the Sanja Matsuri for the morning, but I'm sure it picked up once the weather cleared.MAY 17, 2025 SATURDAY Artizon / ShinjukuSaturday was a partial spare day. I only knew I wanted to be in Shinjuku for the afternoon and early evening for the giant Godzilla projection mapping that only happens on Saturdays and Sundays while we were there. As there was a steady rainfall - you needed umbrellas - we just went to the nearby Artizon Museum for the morning. It was a short walk underground through Kyobashi Station and then above ground for a few blocks.The Artizon is a private museum originally called the Bridgestone Museum (yup, the tire company) and was one of the pioneering art museums in Japan. They had an interesting exhibit about an artist/designer couple Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Jean Arp of the early 20th century. Their work spanned Dada, Constructivism, and abstraction, challenging the boundaries between applied and fine arts. This exhibit featured 88 works including individual and collaborative pieces—reassesses their creative partnership, highlighting Taeuber-Arp’s geometric compositions and Jean Arp’s biomorphic forms, and emphasizing their mutual influence and enduring legacy in modern art. Some of the pieces were really neat and the textile pieces were interesting too.The regular exhibits had many paintings from famous painters and some from Japanese painters inspired by Western techniques. There's a fair bit to see here and if you have time or a gap in your schedule I would drop in for a look if you like modern art.Some of Jean's puppets.

Tokyo Excess