MOBILE ART IN TOKYO
This article features photos of the exterior architecture and a review of the art event “Mobile Art in Tokyo,” which was held in 2008 at the National Yoyogi Stadium Olympic Plaza in Tokyo and was sponsored by Chanel.
Table of contents
Introduction
The event is the Tokyo leg of Chanel’s art project, which will travel to major cities around the world over the course of two years.
Works by 20 or so contemporary artists (some say 21) will be exhibited in a sleek mobile pavilion designed by architect Zaha Hadid.
Gallery
Photography was prohibited inside the venue, so only exterior photos are available.
Aerial photos of the venue can be seen on the Zaha Hadid Architects page for reference.
Review
Looking back at the photos I took in 2025 and the free paper I received, it was a luxurious event in which an organic building resembling Zaha Hadid’s unfinished National Stadium was built on a vacant lot next to Yoyogi Gymnasium, and famous artists such as Sophie Calle provided works inside.
There was a problem with the admission method for this event, which was free of admission and required online reservations for all days and times at a time when online reservations were still in their infancy in 2008.
When June arrived and I was thinking about making reservations soon, all the reservation slots were filled up until the closing date.
This was because anyone could reserve as many slots as they wanted on the reservation site, so the reservation slots were quickly filled up by people who seemed to be scalpers, and Yahoo! Auctions was flooded with resale slots.
As the reservation admission system did not work in this way, we reverted to the primitive style of lining up at the entrance to the venue and viewing the exhibition if there were any vacant slots for 20 people at a time. On June 10th, when I viewed the exhibition, I waited about an hour to enter.
The admission limit of 20 people at a time is a measure to allow people to circulate around the venue wearing MP3 players.
It seems that the admission limit will not change much at the 2025 Osaka Expo, so it seems that there has not been much technological or human progress.
Event outline
MOBILE ART IN TOKYO -CHANEL CONTEMPORARY ART CONTAINER by ZAHA HADID
May 31st – July 4th, 2008
Venue: Olympic Plaza, National Yoyogi Stadium, Tokyo
Venue architect: Zaha Hadid
Price: Free admission (reservation required)
Featured Artists:
- Daniel Buren, France
- Fabrice Hyber, France
- Pierre et Gilles, France
- Sophie Calle, France
- Blue Noses, Russia
- Loris Cecchini, Italy
- Sylvie Fleury, Switzerland
- Wim Delvoye, Belgium
- Y.Z. KAMI, Iran
- David Levinthal, USA
- Stephen Shore, USA
- Lee Bul, South Korea
- Michael Lin, Taiwan
- Subodh Gupta, India
- Yang Fudong Fudong, China
- Nobuyoshi Araki, Japan
- Soju Tao, Japan
- Tabaimo, Japan
- Yoko Ono, Japan
I have seen mentions of 20 or 21 names, but I have only been able to list 19.
Reference links
- ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTURE OFFICE
- The Year in Art 2008 — Part One・Tokyo Art beat
Photo equipment
- Leica M8 + CONTAX G BIOGON 21mm M-mount-Modify
Update history
- 2025.5.18
- 2022.5.11
Affiliate links
- ZAHA HADID・Ads by Amazon
- ZAHA HADID・Ads by Rakuten
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