HIROSHIMA CITY MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, MOCA - Japan
Motoko Suhama, Curator
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA was established 1989. The first public art museum in Japan devoted exclusively to contemporary art. Special exhibitions of major international and domestic artists enable visitors to consider Hiroshima from a world view and links the contemporary to the future. Every three years there is an exhibition of works by the recipient of the Hiroshima Art Prize, established by the City of Hiroshima which recognizes the achievements of artists who have contributed to the peace of humanity in the field of contemporary art, and through contemporary art aims to appeal to a wider world and the spread the "Spirit of Hiroshima," which seeks everlasting world peace. Recipients of the award include Yoko Ono, Cai Guo-Qiang, Shirin Neshat, Daniel Libeskind and Issey Miyake. The building was designed by Kisho Kurokawa, who studied under Kenzo Tange and was a co-founder of the Metabolist Movement in the 1960s. The design incorporates classical colonnades, ancient Greek agora meeting space and a Japanese storehouse (kura) and rises from its the natural fabric of stone foundations, giving way to man-made tiles and aluminium, reflecting the development of civilization from the past to the future along the stream of time.