TOKYO.- Almost Sky is a two-person exhibition at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery featuring works by Jun Aoki and Richard Tuttle, curated by Yoko Nose. An accompanying exhibition catalog will be published by limArt on September 11, 2026.

In Almost Sky, an exhibition that emerged through conversations between architect Jun Aoki and artist Richard Tuttle, visitors are encouraged to look upwards as if gazing at the sky.

The kanji character for “sky” can also be read as “emptiness”, but here it does not signify a void of nothingness but rather a place full of light and shadow and atmosphere that is rich in subtle changes. For Aoki, architecture is “air”, the creation of free spaces that accommodate individuals’ differing values and speeds. For Tuttle, works of art are “light”, a medium for sharing with others the truth, beauty, and fulfilment captured in an instant. The fusion of architecture and art ─ which can be likened to the air and light that fill the world ─ gives rise to spaces full of fertile yohaku, or blank areas.

Something that appears to be a structure has no function, vibrant colors shimmer in the air, and everything is fluid. In this space unconstrained by specific meaning, the visitors’ line of sight is cut off from the overabundance of information, allowing them to reconsider the shape of the world before we even saw it.

Exhibition highlights

An architect-artist collaboration

Aoki’s architecture ─ which refuses to be bound by the predetermined functions and forms of architecture, instead rearranging the relationships between spaces, bodies, and events for each project ─ and Tuttle’s works ─ which exist at once as paintings, sculptures, reliefs, and drawings ─ share a commonality in that they effortlessly transcend existing frameworks. Rather than an architect creating the venue for an artist's exhibition, this exhibition is a collaboration between architect Jun Aoki and artist Richard Tuttle. What has emerged from this conversation is an exhibition that is both architecture and art, and yet neither. Aoki compares architecture to “air” and Tuttle compares his art to “light”. The tangible overlap between the two gives rise to a new relationship between space and perception.

Works exhibited

For this collaboration with Aoki, Tuttle devised three elements that symbolize nature: a column-like structure constructed using building materials such as void tubes, insulation, and polycarbonate sheets; a basket of snails resting on tree leaves; and a sash made of colorful tissue paper. Aoki reuses display pedestals from past exhibitions at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery to create items including fixtures, seating, and lighting for placement in the exhibition rooms. In a space comprising only these limited components (the three elements and the units created from pedestals), a variety of spaces emerge depending on their arrangement and combination and on the relationship between light and shadow.





Reconfiguring the space

Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery has special exhibition rooms on the lower floor, rooms for collection exhibitions and for the project N series of exhibitions showcasing emerging artists working in two-dimensional media on the upper floor, and the Gallery 5 museum shop near the art gallery entrance. For this exhibition, based on Aoki’s proposal, spaces that appear to have independent functions have been transformed into a single loosely connected space. Works selected by Aoki from the Terada Collection (which is ordinarily displayed on the upper floor) are being displayed on the lower floor, the museum shop has been relocated to the corridor within the art gallery, and the Aoki-Tuttle exhibition is being presented in the shop’s usual location. The relocated museum shop offers books selected by Aoki and Tuttle as well as jewelry and other merchandise designed especially for this exhibition. This will spread the exhibition’s boundaries so that the elements of the work become incorporated into people's lives.

Gaze upward

As the title Almost Sky suggests, this exhibition encourages visitors to turn their gaze upward, guided by the artworks. In our day-to-day lives we spend much time looking down, gazing at screens and reading books. However, in this exhibition we can escape from the overabundance of information by looking up, even as we simultaneously come to realize that a space is being born below. According to Aoki, a museum is a space like a womb with an undefined form that gives birth to unexpected events and relationships thanks to the presence of people. He says that they are places that allow the mind to gently float. Tuttle says that his job as an artist is to obtain and grant this freedom, and that he wants to create spaces where people can feel safe. This exhibition is also an experiment that explores the possibilities of a museum space where visitors can turn their awareness to subtle changes and pass the time as they please.

Jun Aoki was born in Yokohama in 1956. He completed the Master’s Program in Architecture at the University of Tokyo in 1982. He worked at Arata Isozaki & Associates from 1983 until 1990, and established Jun Aoki and Associates in 1991. He has been involved in projects ranging from private residences to public buildings and commercial facilities, including Yusui-kan Swimming Pool (1993), Lagoon Museum (1997), Aomori Museum of Art (2006), Omiyamae Gymnasium (2013), Miyoshi Civic Hall Kiriri (2014), and Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art (2020, in collaboration with Tetsuo Nishizawa).

He has a wide-ranging practice encompassing not only art exhibitions such as U bis (2002, A Perspective on Contemporary Art: Continuity/Transgression, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), Red and Blue Line (2013, SPIDERS (a unit with Hiroshi Sugito and Chiaki Machimoto), Aichi Triennale, Nagoya City Art Museum), Jun Aoki × Hiroshi Sugito: Happa to Harappa Exhibition proposal (2009-2011, SPIDERS (a unit with Hiroshi Sugito and Masayuki Oishi, Chiaki Machimoto, and Toru Murayama), Aomori Museum of Art), but also writing on a variety of areas including architecture, art, and literature. He is the author of JUN AOKI COMPLETE WORKS |1|, |2|, |3| (|1| 2004, |2| 2006, INAX Publishing, |3| 2016, LIXIL Publishing), Open Fields and Amusement Parks (2004, Oukoku-sha Publishing), Jun Aoki 1991-1999 (Shokokusha Publishing Co., Ltd., 2006). He has edited publications including Architectural Literature Masterpieces (2007, Kodansha). In 2004 he received the New Artist Award of the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize.

Richard Tuttle was born in New Jersey (US) in 1941, and currently lives and works in New Mexico and New York. He studied philosophy and literature at Trinity College and held his first solo exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1965. In 1975, at the age of 34, his solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art drew a tremendous response. Tuttle has participated in many major international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale, documenta, Skulptur Projekte Münster and Whitney Biennial. Starting with his early masterpieces such as his Cloth Piece works ─ in which he cut up canvases for display as if deconstructing paintings ─ and his Wire Piece works ─ made up of wire, shadows, and drawn lines ─ his free expression transcends the boundaries of drawing, painting, and sculpture, constantly invigorating the art scene and exerting a profound influence on subsequent generations. A retrospective exhibition, The Art of Richard Tuttle, toured the US from 2005 to 2007. The Tate Modern and Whitechapel Gallery held a major solo exhibition in 2014. Tuttle's works are in the collections of museums including the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, and the National Museum of Art, Osaka.