Given the profusion of events lined up for next week, it's easy to believe that Tokyo is going through a contemporary art renaissance. Since the opening of the Mori Art Museum in 2003, contemporary art has arguably enjoyed a higher profile than it has in the past 30 years in Japan.
Through a combination of the savvy support of the family behind it, its flashy facility in central Tokyo, and mainstream marketing efforts, the Mori has turned exhibitions that feature the latest in art — rather than the usual collections of dead European painters — into blockbusters with the public. In combination with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo and Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, weekend museum-dabblers have been slowly educated in the strange and challenging forms that contemporary art can take.
To see where Japanese artists who produce such works begin their museum careers, take a look at the 15th "Vision of Contemporary Art" exhibition, showing till Sunday at the Royal Ueno Museum. Chosen by submissions from curators, critics and scholars, the show brings together rising artists under the age of 40 who the committee believes are the country's next generation of creators in two-dimensional media.