by Melanie Gerlis, art market journalist and author
Japan’s art market is small in the global scheme of things. The latest sales data puts its value at $692mn, just 1.2% of the whole pie, according to the research firm Arts Economics. Unlike the wider art market though, the country has shown growth (up 2% against a global decline of 12% in 2024), while international galleries are showing a taste for Japan’s art scene, notably its artists.
In London this summer, The Photographers’ Gallery has an exhibition of Japanese Women Photographers: From 1950s to Now, while earlier in the year the Hayward Gallery ran a solo show of the immersive artist Chiharu Shiota. In New York, leading commercial gallery David Zwirner recently hosted a show of 10 Japanese born, contemporary artists, alongside five of the country’s earlier practitioners, in an exhibition organised by Martin Germann, previously adjunct curator at Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum.
This included Yu Nishimura, whose international auction prices continue to break records. In May, one of his trademark, haunting paintings—“Leaves carpet” (2017)—sold for nearly $1mn at Sotheby’s New York. Nishimura’s auction record was $132,000 in 2024; in 2023, he had no works offered at all.
Overseas galleries are certainly betting on the next level. Recent openings in Tokyo include the first Asian space for Ceysson & Bénétière, also in France, Luxembourg and Switzerland, and the significant landing of the international outfit Pace gallery in the Azabudai Hills development in 2024.
Come this year, Pace announced a significant reduction of its global gallery artists and staff, but, says CEO Marc Glimcher, there are definitely no changes expected in Tokyo. “Japan is our model for the future,” he says. The country, he says, has “become incredibly user-friendly, everything works. It’s fun and easy to operate there, as a visitor and a business.”
Local collectors are “calm, deliberate, not speculative, young and very impassioned,” Glimcher adds, describing Pace’s shows in Tokyo as “ridiculously successful”—and at international price levels. Works in the gallery’s current exhibition of the fluid British painter Nigel Cooke range from $100,000-$1mn.
Pace is among those returning to the Tokyo Gendai fair this year, at which, says co-founder Magnus Renfrew, overseas exhibitors account for just over half of around 70 galleries. About 20% of its VIP visitors come from outside Japan, Renfrew says.
He acknowledges that the cheap yen adds to the appeal to overseas collectors, while the art fair’s bonded status means that they can avoid a 10% consumption tax (Pace gallery has the same privilege, Glimcher confirms.) The incentive though is “more about the growth, a country bucking the global trend,” Renfrew says.
Another fair returnee this year is Sundaram Tagore, who has galleries in Singapore, New York and London. His mixed booth of artists from around the world will include Japan’s Hiroshi Senju, whose large-scale waterfall paintings have been installed in Haneda airport and the Kongobuji Temple at Koyasan. Tagore finds that Senju’s work “consistently draws serious collectors to our booth,” where they can also discover other artists.
Yasuta Hayashi, director for cultural policy analysis at the Agency for Cultural Affairs, notes “the growing international interest in Japanese artists”, particularly, he says, for female practitioners. Eri Takane, director of Tokyo Gendai, finds too that works on paper, including photographs, are in demand and this year the art fair fields a new section, called ‘Trunk’, with eleven dedicated gallery booths.
When the two combine, the international market will take note. Takane cites Mari Katayama, a Gunma-based photographer who recently won the inaugural Mori Art Award Grand Prize and who has a commissioned installation on view at London’s V&A Museum. Her solo show opens at the Mori at the end of October; expect her auction appearances to follow suit.
Tokyo Gendai
Dates:
11-13 September 2026 (Fri-Sun) *Vernissage: 10 September (Thu)
Venue:
Pacifico Yokohama
Ticket Purchase:
