The Yokohama Museum of Art is not one of Kenzo Tange’s best designs. Compared to the striking curves of the architect’s Yoyogi National Gymnasium or the lightness of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, the YMA is squat and charmless.
In 2017, for the sixth Yokohama Triennale, contemporary Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei adorned the museum’s drab exterior with fluorescent inflatable rafts and life vests, referencing the humanitarian crisis of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean. For the 2020 edition, the entire facade was hidden by a gigantic shimmering gray membrane created by Croatian-born Ivana Franke.
After three years of refurbishment, the museum reopened in March this year with the eighth Yokohama Triennale, themed “Wild Grass: Our Lives,” and hanging off the building is ... absolutely nothing.
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