EX­hi­Bi­tion

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

In effect since 1947, Japan’s current constitution was drafted through both compromise and a desire for national reinvention in the aftermath of World War II. Now, nearly 80 years later, it stands increasingly at the center of political debate in deeply uncertain times. The Constitution of Japan exhibition series pairs contemporary artworks with selected articles from this foundational document to invite urgent reflection on the meanings of postwar democracy as it is lived today. This fourth iteration unfolds simultaneously across two Tokyo galleries, drawing on the contrasting postwar histories of their surrounding neighborhoods to illuminate the gap between constitutional promises and the uneven worlds in which people actually live.

The two galleries are temporarily transformed into distinct conceptual spaces that tell very different but interconnected stories. Mujin-to Production, in eastern Tokyo, becomes “Shelter,” in a district where the instability produced by catastrophe and reconstruction remains close to the surface, while Aoyama | Meguro, in the gentrified west, becomes “Sweatshop,” evoking a space where the exploitation of bodies and resources is obscured beneath the sparkle of contemporary affluence. The art presented in “Shelter” meditates on resilience amid precarious conditions, asking how people resist erasure, improvise ways of surviving and thriving, and assert their existence where they have been denied space. “Sweatshop” features works that examine the systems sustaining inequality beneath the veneer of everyday life, asking how power disciplines bodies, extracts labor, consumes land, and normalizes hidden violence in the name of security and comfort.

Moving between these two sites becomes a way of reading the Japanese constitution not only through who and what it has failed to protect, but also through those who continue to test its limits and push for freedoms and recognition it has yet to grant.

—Greg Dvorak & Kenji Ono

The Constitution of Japan 2026 is on view concurrently at Aoyama | Meguro.