POKÉMON X KOGEI Exhibition at the Sagawa Art Museum

I attended the POKÉMON X KOGEI -Playful Encounters of Pokémon and Japanese Craft- Exhibition at the Sagawa Art Museum in Moriyama, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, from 30 March to 9 June 2024.

The exhibition was first held at the National Crafts Museum in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, in March last year, and then at JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles in LA.
It will tour all over Japan, starting with the current exhibition in Shiga Prefecture.

Pokémon is well known to people overseas, but what kind of chemical reactions would occur if characters created in contemporary Japan and traditional Japanese crafts met? This question was the impetus for the organization of this exhibition.
The exhibiting artists range in age from young artists to living national treasures and come from the fields of metalworks, ceramics, woodworks, lacquerware, glassworks, and textiles.
The exhibiting artist, Sadamasa Imai, is the son of Kogei Art KYOTO artist Makimasa Imai, so I had heard about this exhibition early on and had been looking forward to it, but unfortunately, I was unable to see it when it was held in Kanazawa due to a scheduling problem.
So I was looking forward to this exhibition at the Sagawa Art Museum.

When I entered the venue and looked around at the works, I found that the exhibition was a wonderful collection of outstanding works that exceeded my expectations.
Photographing all of the artists’ works was impossible, but here I would like to introduce some of them in images.

I started with Sadamasa Imai’s work.

The serious competition between Pokémon and craft artists was truly spectacular and enjoyable for all ages, from small children to adults.

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