Fukuoka Art Museum — Attraction in Fukuoka

Neat museum with exhibits each unique in style, from modern to historic.

Upon ascending the stairs towards the entrance of the Museum, you are greeted by a very nice butt. Certainly a sign of great things to come, I thought to myself.

A Rome exhibit was on during my visit, which was interesting, very historic. A giant hand and a Cherrio haired bust caught my attention the most; both favourites now.

In the modern art sections, a rather interesting piece called “Mother As A Void” was my favourite. From across the room it lures you in, mind struggling to comprehend what it’s seeing, a black emptiness seated on the ground. No light reflects off it so its absorption of all light makes it quite unusual to look at. Don’t know why I was expecting that the longer and harder you look into the void, that something would be looking back.

Sadly, but understandably, no photos were allowed for some of the cooler instalments.

Also, don’t skip the civic exhibit, it was a place of many interesting works of art by the community and some students it seems. Some very talented kids share some great...

A really amazing building. Housing a decent collection. They have a very interesting assortment of older documents and statues, some of them extremely old. They also have a very random collection of 19th and 20th century art. To my mind the highlight of that is the Dali. It was a very interesting couple of hours I spent looking closely through the whole collection. At the same time, for a museum that size I thought the collection itself was somewhat thin. Perhaps all the major pieces got moved to Tokyo over the centuries. The quality of the museum presentation was top notch, and the pieces had plenty of space on the wall. The displays were amazingly well done, with almost no reflections on the protecting glass or anything like that. I use Google translate on all the signs next to the artwork. And that really helped me understand the collection. Without that it would have been a very different experience with only the pieces and no context. The basic labels are translated into English, but the extended explanation is only in Japanese. It's amazing what smartphones can...

I love this humble-looking museum and will recommend it to everyone who visits Fukuoka. Their collection in modern art is thoughtful. I used the word "thoughful" as any richer, larger museum may boast about "more" / "better"/ "more popular/ famous" work etc. but that just restates their shallow understanding about art (=capitalism). I haven't seen art exhibition that utilized what they had and actually thought about the idea they wanna convey for a while.

I didn't expect, but they do have art work from Picasso, Andy Warhol and Yayoi Kusama, but they specifically chose and housed the unconventional and good ones from those artists. Some of their early work, some in a lesser known form, which really opened my eyes. The curator's understanding about transnationality is very well presented in their curation, which is rare everywhere. This is museum that made me feel warm and enriched. I'm so glad that I didn't miss this gem, and wanna visit again during this tour already. Probably I will be less cynical about modern / d contemporary art...