75th Mainichi Shodo Exhibition (第75回毎日書道展) at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum

The 75th Mainichi Shodo Exhibition (第75回毎日書道展) spans two venues: The National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT) in Roppongi, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno. On display at NACT are the works by members of the Mainichi Shodo Association (including the organising committee of the Mainichi Shodo Exhibition) as well as winning works from the selected public submissions. The selected public submissions that did not win any prize or award (such as mine...) are displayed at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.

Last week, I went to see the works on display at NACT. My work is on display from 18 to 24 July 2024 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, so I went yesterday to it as well as the other works (from the Kanto area) selected for the exhibition. I was quite excited as this was my first time submitting a work to Mainichi Shodo Exhibition, and it was selected for display.

 

Some directions on where the works are being displayed. The entry to the museum is at B1, and the exhibition covered all 3 floors from B1 to the 2nd floor.

 

 

You can see the amount of space taken up by this exhibition. You basically enter from B1, where display area 1 is, and then make you way through the rooms/areas, then move up to the next floor, repeat the process, and then up another floor and repeat again.

 

My piece was on display at the area marked 99.

This is an excerpt from the poem 短歌行 by 曹操, and the words are:

对酒当歌，人生几何！
譬如朝露，去日苦多。
慨当以慷，忧思难忘。
何以解忧？唯有杜康。

The works on display also gave me a sense of what to aim for, although the ones at NACT were a better guide (of course, since those are the winning works). I took some photos to for future reference.

Oh, at the end of the exhibition area on the 2nd floor are the winning works from the 32nd International High School Shodo Exhibition held last year. These are works by high school students, and I was really amazed by the high level of their works.

I am truly inspired to want to do better. So it is back to practice, and to think about what to write for future submissions!