Things to do in Fukuoka, Kyushu-Okinawa: The Best Art Museums

Due to its geographical and historical characteristics, Fukuoka City has served as a gateway to continental Asian culture since ancient times. Today it has assumed a new role, that of a key interactive city for Asia. Fukuoka Asian Art Museum opened in 1999, as a part of the city’s progressive strategy for interaction with different Asian cultures. The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum is the only museum in the world that systematically collects and exhibits Asian modern and contemporary art. The works in the collection of the museum are not imitation of Western art or repetitions of traditional works. Instead they seek to overcome the existing framework of art, being made by artists living in ‘contemporary’ Asia. These artists attempt to acutely express their message in and about this changing world of Asia. FAAM's exhibitions of Asian modern and contemporary art are rich in depth and quality, and wide in scope. They present the originality and charm of Asian art in a way that cannot be experienced in any other museum in the world. The museum has also been functioning as a place for people to become familiar with Asian arts and culture through the artistic creations and researches of the invitees of the Residence Program. It is an interactive museum - the place of meeting, understanding each other and creating together.

The Fukuoka Art Museum’s collection consists of modern and contemporary art, i.e. art created in the 20th century or later, and pre-modern art, produced in the 19th century or earlier. The collection is highly diverse both historically and geographically, ranging from around 5000 B.C. to A.D. 2000, and including art of Japan, other Asian countries, and the West, and in terms of media, encompassing painting, sculpture and film as well as folding screens, ceramics, and textiles. This diversity is the most prominent feature of the Fukuoka Art Museum’s collection. Our collection has been increasingly enriched through purchases and donations made by individuals and benefactors. The total number of works in the collection now exceeds 16,000.

This art gallery opened in November 2019 in Fukuoka. With the theme of "thinking", the gallery introduces artists who express their own unique sensibilities, which we don't have the opportunity to come into contact with in our standardized Japanese society, and conveys the importance of thinking for ourselves and expanding our world.