Yokoo Tadanori’s Haunted Museum
Japan
Kobe
2021
13
Yokoo Tadanori’s Haunted Museum presents a compelling exploration of the intrinsic connection between art and fear, featuring a diverse range of the artist’s works. Yokoo Tadanori has consistently pursued phenomena that remain invisible or unexplainable by science, a fascination rooted in his childhood experiences with profound darkness and mystical encounters in Nishiwaki. This deeply personal history informs much of his art, from his celebrated illustrations for the Complete Works of Edogawa Rampo to his paintings created since his “painter’s declaration.” The exhibition, designed with deliberately darkened spaces, encourages visitors to engage with their own ambivalent emotions of wanting to look yet fearing the unknown. It highlights art’s enduring capacity to interpret and express humanity’s primal responses to mystery and the unseen, fostering a reflection on these universal aspects of human existence.
Why should you watch this?
The film Yokoo Tadanori’s Haunted Museum asks what happens when fear and curiosity meet in the same moment. Drawing on childhood nights of complete darkness and on the unsettling imagery of his Edogawa Rampo illustrations, Yokoo turns the unseen into something you can almost touch. A face appearing out of shadow or a mouth repeated like a chant unsettles, yet also holds you in place. The experience lingers because it reminds us that fear is not only about danger but about discovery, and that learning to face it can change how we see the world.
Abdellatif Laâbi: A Poet Passes Through
Morocco
Rabat
2024
11
A Poet Passes Through celebrates the expansive world of Abdellatif Laâbi, the Moroccan writer, poet, and painter, at the Mohammed VI Museum in Rabat. This exhibition explores Laâbi’s rich and engaged body of work, presenting him as a voice for a generation seeking meaning through art. It unveils the creative spirit of an era, featuring literary works, archival documents, paintings, and videos that trace his journey and reveal his less-known facet as a painter. A significant focus is the groundbreaking Souffles review, co-founded by Laâbi, which profoundly transformed Moroccan culture and liberated minds. Visitors will discover how one artist’s vision and intellectual struggle historically shaped artistic expression and continue to resonate today, offering a unique insight into a life dedicated to creative impact.
Why should you watch this?
A Poet Passes Through speaks directly to questions of voice, memory, and cultural freedom. Abdellatif Laâbi’s journey — from the radical energy of Souffles to the intimacy of his paintings — shows how words and images can both confront oppression and nurture renewal. The exhibition reveals the texture of a life lived in dialogue with history, where poetry became protest and later painting carried a quieter, but no less powerful, resonance. To watch it is to sense how one artist’s struggle for expression connects with ongoing searches for dignity and meaning, making Laâbi’s work as urgent as it is timeless.
Sourtna. Carte Blanche to Yoriyas. Moroccan Photographers of Today and Tomorrow
Morocco
Rabat
2021
10
The exhibition Sourtna. Carte Blanche to Yoriyas. Moroccan Photographers of Today and Tomorrow opens Morocco’s first National Museum of Photography, showcasing contemporary Moroccan image-makers. Inaugurated in January 2020 within Rabat’s historic Fort Rottembourg, a landmark built in 1888, this institution makes art accessible to diverse neighborhoods. The project expands cultural access, reflecting Morocco’s commitment to visual self-expression and societal reflection through its artists. Curated by acclaimed photographer Yassine Alaoui Ismaili (Yoriyas), it consciously bridges generations, presenting established and emerging talents. Visitors discover how local photographic voices capture a nation’s evolving identity and foster community connections.
Why should you watch this?
The film Sourtna shows how a new museum and a young curator-photographer can redraw a nation’s visual story, making photographic practice public and collective. Set in Fort Rottembourg and curated by Yoriyas, it stitches together established names and smartphone images, moments of youth, family, and bold questions of identity. Seeing a rooftop portrait side-by-side with a grainy phone frame feels both intimate and political; listening to artists talk about transmission between generations moves from pride to urgency. The film leaves a clear charge: when communities claim their image-making, they reshape history and open space for conversation and belonging.
“Rage and Desire — The Beating Heart of Men” by photographer Gérard Rancinan and writer Caroline Gaudriault
Morocco
Rabat
2021
11
This exhibition, Of Rage and Desire, The Beating Heart of Men, presents a unique photographic and literary confrontation exploring the state of humanity in the modern era. Conceived by international photographer Gérard Rancinan and French author Caroline Gaudriault, the project uses monumental imagery and reflective texts to critically examine the profound social contradictions and transformations that have defined life in the 20th and 21st centuries. The display features Rancinan’s striking, metaphor-rich photographs, which often reinterpret classic masterpieces, alongside Gaudriault’s powerful calligraphic installations. Organized into three immersive parts, the exhibition charts our complex relationship with Modernity and societal upheaval. Visitors leave having considered the full range of human feeling — our hopes, rages, desires, and responsibilities — within the continuous transformation of the global world.
Why should you watch this?
The film Of Rage and Desire, The Beating Heart of Men speaks directly to our fractured present by pairing Gérard Rancinan’s monumental, often operatic photographs with Caroline Gaudriault’s hand-written texts, forcing a conversation between image and language about power, longing, and social fracture. Moments such as a staged tableau that echoes a classical masterpiece and a nearby wall of looping calligraphy confront viewers with feeling and argument at once — beautiful, unsettling, and hard to look away from. The effect is both visceral and cerebral: it provokes anger, invites reflection, and asks a final responsibility of us all — to name what we want and what we must change.
Hyogo Prefectural Yokoo Emergency Hospital
Japan
Kobe
2020
18
The exhibition Hyogo Prefectural Yokoo Emergency Hospital explores the profound connection between artist Yokoo Tadanori’s body, his life, and his creative output. Spanning his journey from sensory childhood experiences to confronting old age, the exhibition highlights Yokoo’s unique philosophy of trusting physical sensation over mental states, even in the face of numerous illnesses and injuries such as asthma and facial palsy. The museum is transformed into a hospital setting, featuring works, diaries, and sketches by Yokoo, including his prophetic With Corona series of 2020 which addressed masks. Viewers are invited to reexamine their own relationship with the physical and consider how challenges, including those of a global pandemic, can inspire resilience and artistic force. This presentation underscores the body as a truthful guide for life and art.
Why should you watch this?
Hyogo Prefectural Yokoo Emergency Hospital reframes illness, aging, and crisis as sources of creativity rather than decline. In transforming a museum into a functioning hospital, the exhibition unsettles yet captivates by asking visitors to confront the fragility of the body — the same fragility Yokoo has long turned into art. His sketches made from a sickbed and the eerie humor of his With Corona collages capture the tension between vulnerability and resilience with startling clarity. The experience ultimately reminds us that the body, in all its imperfections, can guide not only personal survival but also shared imagination for the future.
110 Years, 110 Works. Société Générale Collection
Morocco
Rabat
2024
8
110 ans, 110 œuvres, at the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat, commemorates Société Générale Maroc’s 110th anniversary and its long-standing commitment to art and Moroccan culture. This exceptional exhibition, a collaboration with the National Museum Foundation, features a precious part of the bank’s collection, including previously unseen works. It takes visitors on a timeless journey, tracing Moroccan art’s evolution from the early 20th century, starting with pioneers like Ben Ali R’bati, across four distinct periods to the present day. The exhibition highlights Moroccan artists’ contribution to national identity. It celebrates a rich artistic heritage and Société Générale Maroc’s enduring role in art’s promotion, anticipating the opening of its own museum in 2024. Visitors gain insight into Morocco’s artistic dynamism and the intricate relationship between banking and cultural patronage over more than a century.
Why should you watch this?
The exhibition 110 ans, 110 œuvres matters today because it shows how art can carry a nation’s memory while speaking to its future. Moving between the early brushstrokes of Ben Ali R’bati and the global perspectives of contemporary Moroccan artists, it evokes both pride and questioning: how does creativity define who we are in a world of constant change? Visitors may feel inspired by the intimate voices of the 1980s generation, who turned personal experience into universal expression, or by today’s works shaped through worldwide dialogue. Ultimately, the exhibition reminds us that art’s power to connect time, place, and people remains urgently relevant.
Hanbok, Poetics of Line and the Passage of Life
Canada
Ottawa
2021
19
The exhibition Hanbok, Poetics of Line and the Passage of Life presents the story of traditional Korean attire, tracing its cultural significance and transformation through time. With a basic style originating in the Three Kingdoms period (37 BCE – 668 CE), the Hanbok shown primarily reflects that of the Joseon dynasty (1392 – 1910). The exhibition explores how this clothing embodies Korean ancestral values, worldview, and reverence for nature through its use in life’s milestone ceremonies and its symbolic colours derived from Yin-Yang theory. Curated by EuiJung McGillis, the presentation showcases items from a baby’s first birthday dress to royal robes, alongside modern reinterpretations by early twentieth-century shinyeoseong (new women). Visitors will discover Hanbok as a transmitter of tradition and a dynamic symbol of Korean identity in a global context.
Why should you watch this?
Hanbok, Poetics of Line and the Passage of Life resonates today because it frames clothing as both a vessel of memory and a mirror of change. The exhibition’s display of the Obangjang durumagi, alive with five elemental colors, reminds us of humanity’s search for balance with nature at a time when sustainability is a global concern. Equally striking are the “new women” who reshaped Hanbok to claim individuality during Korea’s modernization — a gesture that still feels bold and liberating. This exhibition shows that tradition is not fixed but evolving, offering viewers a timeless reflection on identity, resilience, and creativity.
Whispers of the Forest
Canada
Ottawa
2025
8
The exhibition Whispers of the Forest presents a playful, interactive world where contemporary Korean art explores themes of nature, community, and coexistence. This immersive installation, designed especially for children and families, addresses pressing modern issues like rapid urban development, environmental loss, and displacement. The gallery becomes a forest playground featuring works by artists Um A Long, who creates sculptures from discarded materials, and Haksoon Hong, who brings his vibrant Wink Tokki World to life through murals and animations. Visitors are encouraged to engage directly with the art, moving beyond passive viewing to reflect on sustainability and our relationships with others. The experience prompts us to imagine a future where all beings can live and grow together in harmony.
Why should you watch this?
The film Whispers of the Forest asks what it means to share a world at a moment when climate change and rapid urban growth unsettle familiar ways of living. Um A Long’s sculptures, shaped from discarded materials, echo the resilience of creatures adapting to damaged environments, while Haksoon Hong’s Wink Tokki characters invite us into a universe where play and friendship make coexistence possible. Together, these voices create a mood that shifts between unease and delight, reminding us that survival and joy are intertwined. The film ultimately leaves viewers with a simple yet urgent question: how do we choose to live together?
TIME FOR OUTRAGE! Art in Times of Social Anger | Right-wing Shift
Germany
Dusseldorf
2020
32
Can anger and rage be justified in a world riddled with oppression and inequality? Are these emotions destructive forces or vital catalysts for social change? As democracy faces crises and populism gains ground globally, these questions have sparked renewed debate. Contemporary artists have responded, using their work to navigate and challenge the pressing issues of our time.
The exhibition ‘Time for Outrage!’ in Düsseldorf explores these questions through six thematic blocks: Right-wing Shift, Trumpism, Protest, Postcolonialism, Feminism, and Discrimination. Across a diverse range of mediums — including installations, drawings, paintings, sculptures, photography, and video art — 40 international artists immerse viewers in the visceral realms of protest, social dissent, and public anger. The exhibition doesn’t just present anger as a raw emotion; it portrays it as a vehicle for dialogue, resistance, and empowerment in the face of systemic injustice.
A substantial portion of the works on display come from the collection of entrepreneur and collector Florian Peters-Messer, whose commitment to socially engaged art amplifies the urgent messages these pieces convey.