BnA Alter Museum

BnA Alter Museum is pleased to present the exhibition Through Shells by three collaborators—Zuan Museum, Shoji Funakawa, and Yukari Motoyama—starting from October 18, 2025, at the staircase gallery SCG.

When we say “to see something,” what exactly does this act entail?
Usually, when we view what are called artworks in the context of an exhibition, we might gaze upon an object, reflect upon it, and at certain moments experience intuition—or not. To be more precise, “gazing at an object” includes the recognition that the object is distinct and autonomous, and perceiving its contours (as a whole) through the continuity of its texture.
Moreover, a moment of intuition can serve as an opportunity for each individual to redefine existing places and relationships within the universe—including myself and us—through the things and events presented in the artwork.

In this exhibition, the “shells” represents a symbolic image that allows us to take in the relationship between texture and contour at a glance. Simultaneously, it signifies that the place connecting to the diverse experiences within the artwork is divided into inside and outside by the boundary of the shells.

The exhibition space, the staircase gallery SCG, is a spiraling area along an emergency staircase spanning ten floors. Visitors ascend and descend in a spiral, like a shell, through exhibition spaces separated by layers and glass. Within this space, the “shells” experienced as unique to each artwork proliferates fractally, folding over itself and guiding viewers through its inner and outer realms.

Through this exhibition, visitors are invited to engage with artworks and their viewing experiences via the concept of the “shells” as defined here. By encountering the medium, spirituality, and historicity as a kind of fiction relative to our current reality, viewers can blur and reorganize their own boundaries.

The exhibition features: Zuan Museum, which collects and displays design books of woodblock prints born from the innovative design culture of the Meiji period, as well as items related to design from the Edo period to the early Showa period; Shoji Funakawa, who creates works based on individual, concrete phenomena that expand the perceiving subject through experiences derived from specific environments or situations; and Yukari Motoyama, who deconstructs the various phenomena that occur in the creation and viewing of paintings and develops systems for focusing on each element.

Like Yuiichi Takahashi’s Spiral Exhibition Pavilion conceived in 1881 (Meiji 14), which was never realized, we hope you enjoy contemplating historical polysemy in dialogue with the present, experiencing the times that could have been or might still be.

[ text: Kazutaka Tsutsui ]

READ MORE