At Tokyo Pride's first queer art exhibition, intimacy and resistance share the wall
On the third floor of Tokyu Plaza Harajuku's Harakado space, the inaugural Queer Art Exhibition — one of the main events of Tokyo Pride 2025 — unfurls as both celebration and reflection.
With 36 works by 30 LGBTQ+ and allied artists, the show presents a broad spectrum of media: painting, photography, illustration, mixed media — and an equally wide spectrum of voices. The result is less a tightly curated gallery show than a spirited, grassroots salon: uneven, but moving.
The range of artistic quality is as wide as the range of mediums, and that goes for the messaging as well. While some pieces are fairly predictable — rainbow flags in various settings (one work is simply a painted flag) — others are intricate, formally sophisticated art objects. These standout pieces offer layered social commentary on what it means to live as an LGBTQ+ individual in Japan today, while also showcasing the technical and conceptual ingenuity of their creators.
Organized through an open-call submission process, the exhibition is crowdsourced in the best sense, shaped by community rather than institution. That openness extends to the structure: visitors are invited to vote for the Tokyo Rainbow Pride Award, a ¥100,000 prize granted by public decision. Donations and artwork sales go directly to the artists themselves. In its structure and spirit, this is a show designed not just to exhibit queer art but to empower queer artists.
'Ordinary' by moriuo |
©TOKYO PRIDE 2025
Among the more resonant pieces is 'Ordinary' by moriuo, a painting drawing lightly on comic-book style, depicting a young male couple hand-in-hand by the ocean as a train passes in the background — perhaps in Kamakura. The image is seen through the eyes of an older gay man, who never had the freedom to express love so openly. 'I wish you could see this view ... this time that has finally come,' reads the artist's quietly devastating caption. It's a moment of tenderness across generations — a reckoning with what was once impossible.
Noumra's 'In My Closet' turns introspection into visual poetry. A large, cutout panel painted in exquisite detail, it features the face of a bearded man surrounded by a wreath of flowers, foliage and a fox-like creature whispering into his ear. The face is serene. Here, the 'closet' is not a site of repression but a blooming inner landscape — a place where identity takes root. Noumra rejects outward signifiers of queerness and instead renders the closet as a space of psychological richness, where pride grows inside before reaching the surface.
'わたしたちの生活' ('Watashi-tachi no Seikatsu,' 'Our Lives') by Moe Kano |
©TOKYO PRIDE 2025
Moe Kano's photographic collage 'わたしたちの生活' ('Watashi-tachi no Seikatsu,' 'Our Lives') also echoes a commitment to pride via smaller gestures. A collection of slice-of-life, candid domestic moments shared with her partner — boxed lunches packed, rooms lived in, messes left uncleaned — it resists spectacle in favor of truth. 'We argue. We disagree. Sometimes we're broke,' she writes. 'But we're together.' The work gently insists that queer love doesn't need to be extraordinary to be valid.
Then there are pieces that pierce more directly. Kazutaka Nagashima's '玫瑰少年' ('Meigui Shonan,' 'Rose Boy'), a gorgeous woodblock print, memorializes Yeh Yung-chih, a Taiwanese queer teenager who died as a result of bullying. Nagashima merges a rose tattoo motif with printmaking in an aching tribute. 'I could have ended up like him,' he confesses, reminding us survival can be political.
'玫瑰少年' ('Meigui Shonan,' 'Rose Boy') by Kazutaka Nagashima |
©TOKYO PRIDE 2025
Natsuki Yoshida's trio of partially monochrome paintings — rooted in manga — traces lesbian romance with emotional clarity and quiet intensity. Through tender embraces, haunted gazes, and symbols like smoke and floating neck halos, these works capture the intimacy between young women, and also the beauty, hesitation and ache of desire in a world still learning how to hold it.
Otokokokoto's '屁' ('He,' 'Fart') is a playful standout, a mixed-media depiction of a man in a public bath. Both irreverent and strangely tender, the work turns bodily humor into a bold artistic gesture. Queer art, it turns out, can embrace absurdity and the delightfully unserious.
Taken together, these works form a constellation of perspectives — some polished, some raw, all urgent in their own way. And in this mix lies the true strength of the exhibition. Because it is crowdfunded and community-sourced, the show makes no claim to curatorial perfection. But it does succeed, powerfully, in reflecting a grassroots artistic community in all its heartfelt and irreducible complexity. The overall message is one of unity and inclusion: Everyone is welcome.
The Queer Art Exhibition at Tokyu Plaza Harajuku's Harakado, runs through June 18. For more information, visit https://pride.tokyo/en/queer-art/.
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Japan Times
11 hours ago
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Japan Times
18 hours ago
- Japan Times
At Tokyo Pride's first queer art exhibition, intimacy and resistance share the wall
On the third floor of Tokyu Plaza Harajuku's Harakado space, the inaugural Queer Art Exhibition — one of the main events of Tokyo Pride 2025 — unfurls as both celebration and reflection. With 36 works by 30 LGBTQ+ and allied artists, the show presents a broad spectrum of media: painting, photography, illustration, mixed media — and an equally wide spectrum of voices. The result is less a tightly curated gallery show than a spirited, grassroots salon: uneven, but moving. The range of artistic quality is as wide as the range of mediums, and that goes for the messaging as well. While some pieces are fairly predictable — rainbow flags in various settings (one work is simply a painted flag) — others are intricate, formally sophisticated art objects. These standout pieces offer layered social commentary on what it means to live as an LGBTQ+ individual in Japan today, while also showcasing the technical and conceptual ingenuity of their creators. Organized through an open-call submission process, the exhibition is crowdsourced in the best sense, shaped by community rather than institution. That openness extends to the structure: visitors are invited to vote for the Tokyo Rainbow Pride Award, a ¥100,000 prize granted by public decision. Donations and artwork sales go directly to the artists themselves. In its structure and spirit, this is a show designed not just to exhibit queer art but to empower queer artists. 'Ordinary' by moriuo | ©TOKYO PRIDE 2025 Among the more resonant pieces is 'Ordinary' by moriuo, a painting drawing lightly on comic-book style, depicting a young male couple hand-in-hand by the ocean as a train passes in the background — perhaps in Kamakura. The image is seen through the eyes of an older gay man, who never had the freedom to express love so openly. 'I wish you could see this view ... this time that has finally come,' reads the artist's quietly devastating caption. It's a moment of tenderness across generations — a reckoning with what was once impossible. Noumra's 'In My Closet' turns introspection into visual poetry. A large, cutout panel painted in exquisite detail, it features the face of a bearded man surrounded by a wreath of flowers, foliage and a fox-like creature whispering into his ear. The face is serene. Here, the 'closet' is not a site of repression but a blooming inner landscape — a place where identity takes root. Noumra rejects outward signifiers of queerness and instead renders the closet as a space of psychological richness, where pride grows inside before reaching the surface. 'わたしたちの生活' ('Watashi-tachi no Seikatsu,' 'Our Lives') by Moe Kano | ©TOKYO PRIDE 2025 Moe Kano's photographic collage 'わたしたちの生活' ('Watashi-tachi no Seikatsu,' 'Our Lives') also echoes a commitment to pride via smaller gestures. A collection of slice-of-life, candid domestic moments shared with her partner — boxed lunches packed, rooms lived in, messes left uncleaned — it resists spectacle in favor of truth. 'We argue. We disagree. Sometimes we're broke,' she writes. 'But we're together.' The work gently insists that queer love doesn't need to be extraordinary to be valid. Then there are pieces that pierce more directly. Kazutaka Nagashima's '玫瑰少年' ('Meigui Shonan,' 'Rose Boy'), a gorgeous woodblock print, memorializes Yeh Yung-chih, a Taiwanese queer teenager who died as a result of bullying. Nagashima merges a rose tattoo motif with printmaking in an aching tribute. 'I could have ended up like him,' he confesses, reminding us survival can be political. '玫瑰少年' ('Meigui Shonan,' 'Rose Boy') by Kazutaka Nagashima | ©TOKYO PRIDE 2025 Natsuki Yoshida's trio of partially monochrome paintings — rooted in manga — traces lesbian romance with emotional clarity and quiet intensity. Through tender embraces, haunted gazes, and symbols like smoke and floating neck halos, these works capture the intimacy between young women, and also the beauty, hesitation and ache of desire in a world still learning how to hold it. Otokokokoto's '屁' ('He,' 'Fart') is a playful standout, a mixed-media depiction of a man in a public bath. Both irreverent and strangely tender, the work turns bodily humor into a bold artistic gesture. Queer art, it turns out, can embrace absurdity and the delightfully unserious. Taken together, these works form a constellation of perspectives — some polished, some raw, all urgent in their own way. And in this mix lies the true strength of the exhibition. Because it is crowdfunded and community-sourced, the show makes no claim to curatorial perfection. But it does succeed, powerfully, in reflecting a grassroots artistic community in all its heartfelt and irreducible complexity. The overall message is one of unity and inclusion: Everyone is welcome. The Queer Art Exhibition at Tokyu Plaza Harajuku's Harakado, runs through June 18. For more information, visit
Japan Times
2 days ago
- Japan Times
Two months on, Osaka Expo organizer struggles to improve experience as crowds grow
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Visitors rest under the Grand Ring during the Osaka expo in the city of Osaka on May 21. | AFP-JIJI The importance of reservations is still catching some visitors off-guard, including those who have attended other expos and didn't have the same experience with lines. 'I went to the (2015) expo in Milan,' said Matteo Piras, who visited with Cianci. 'I didn't need any reservations. I was thinking it was the same (here), but no.' Still, despite some vocal criticism on social media sites, data shows that visitors are broadly pleased with their expo experience. In a survey conducted by the organizers of over 100,000 visitors to the expo through the end of April, 44% of respondents said they were satisfied with their experience and 35.7% said they were somewhat satisfied, compared to a combined rate of 9.4% who said they were somewhat dissatisfied or dissatisfied. Even Piras and Cianci weren't exactly disappointed with their experience. 'The global vision is very beautiful,' Piras said. Takeru Nakao was visiting for the second time last Saturday and, despite the long lineups, says he would recommend the expo. 'I haven't been to many foreign destinations, but here I can learn a lot because I come across them naturally just by walking around,' he said. Swarms of midges have proved to be a major annoyance for visitors at Osaka expo in the evening, forcing organizers to form a task force to determine pest control measures. | JIJI Beyond crowd control, there are other sources of turbulence. Swarms of midges have proved to be a major annoyance for visitors in the evening, forcing organizers to form a task force to determine pest control measures. Meanwhile, the detection of high levels of Legionella bacteria in the seawater at the site's Water Plaza and in the Forest of Tranquility raised public health concerns and caused the cancellation of water shows, and in the face of criticism over the slow reaction to the problem, organizers acknowledged the response was insufficient. Those issues might pale in comparison, however, to the impending risk posed by Japan's scorching summers. Mist-cooling areas and spot air conditioners are being installed in anticipation of ever-increasing temperatures. | Joel Tansey Despite the shade provided by the Grand Ring and other buildings, the expo site is largely exposed to the elements and the large area means people expend a lot of energy getting from point A to point B, raising the risk of heatstroke. Organizers have set up water stations and tents to ensure guests are hydrated and can escape the sun. There are also mist-cooling areas around the site and spot air conditioners are being installed in anticipation of ever-increasing temperatures. Given the long lineups for many pavilions, sometimes in places directly exposed to the sun, it remains to be seen whether that will be enough. 'We're really trying to make improvements every day,' Yoshimura of Osaka Expo said. 'Of course Japan has these hot, humid summers every year ... We have the technology and know-how in Japan so we'd like to use that as much as possible.'
