Featured Events in Kobe in April 2025 (July Updated)

This exhibition will trace the 60-plus year history of Sanrio, the company that has created many popular characters such as Hello Kitty and My Melody, through the "kawaii" culture that has become a global language. The exhibition will also focus on the background to the creation of the characters and how they developed, and will feature hundreds of exhibits such as precious original drawings, related materials, and nostalgic goods from that time. There will also be an exhibit of collaborative works with contemporary artists inspired by Sanrio characters.

Pastry chef Koyama Susumu will be featuring ten chocolate dinosaurs created specifically for this exhibition. As a child, Koyama was engrossed in playing with insects and clay in nature, and after becoming a pastry chef he learned professionally about the properties of chocolate - how it hardens, melts, and how it briefly becomes clay-like before melting when crushed at high speed - and how to handle it. However, Koyama says that he was able to create dinosaurs as a pastry chef without any special training, because his body remembers the things he loved, and that everyone has had childhood experiences that they were passionate about and that continue to influence them to the present. This exhibition will allow visitors to see dinosaurs that Koyama has completed by kneading, as well as the masks he has favored making in recent years.

Tadanori Yokoo is known as the "Andy Warhol of Japan". He started out as a graphic designer and worked as an advertising designer for the Kobe Shimbun. Later, he gradually turned to mysticism and began a 15-year exploration of the world of spirituality and surrealism. As Japanese scholars believe: "Yokoo is a pioneer of the revival of popular art in the 21st century. He changed the trend of art that was out of touch with the masses in the 20th century." The exhibition is conceived as a board game, reconstructing Yokoo's career. The scene allows viewers to interact with the works in an immersive way. The audience is regarded as a "player", and whether they can successfully pass the level depends to a certain extent on luck, which echoes the artist's concept of accepting fate.

This chapter covers Klee's period from when he studied at the Academy in Munich and then began producing art in his hometown of Bern with a small group of friends, to when he returned to Munich and met Kandinsky, Marc, and other artists of the Blue Rider movement.