Kawasaki City Museum

Kawasaki City Museum opened in November 1988. The museum consists of two major parts, historical museum and art museum. The art museum is uniquely characterized as "Museum for Media". This part includes departments of Graphic Art, Photography, Cartoon and Comics,Film and Video. Each department has its own collection . The collection is one of the largest collectionof "mechanically reproducible arts" in Japan.
Facilities of workshop for each department are provided. As for exhibition space, there are one large exhibition space( about 700 square meter) and galleries or theater for each department. The museum is near Musashi Kosugi Station on the Tokyu Toyoko Line ( from Shibuya or Yokohama ) or JR Nambu Line (from Kawasaki). Shuttlebus service is available from Musashi Kosugi Station ( municipal bus stop No.1). The museum is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5p.m., closed on Mondays.

Department of Photography

The department of photography of Kawasaki City Museum is the first one set up in a public museum in Japan. In the collection, there have been so far collected over 5000 works of both Japanese and international photography. The department collects photographic works according to the two principles. One is collecting the photo-historically important works and another is collecting the vital works of contemporary art of photography. Major holdings include: W.H.F.Talbot, E.Baldus, E.Atget, A.Sander, L.Hine, W.Evans, Hikoma Ueno, Hiroshi Hamaya, Shoji Ueda, Nobuyoshi Araki, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Lewis Baltz, Hilla and Bernd Becher etc..
As for exhibition, there are also two types: exhibitions of the history of photography, e.g. "Development of Japanese Photography after the War 1945-1980"(1988), "Photography and Human Beings"(1989) and exhibitions of contemporary photography like "TREND89 Aspects of Contemporary Photography" (1989), "En Liberte Contemporary French Photography"(1991),"Lewis Baltz Rule without Exception"(1992), "Matrix of Photography"(1993).
As one of the center for contemporary photography in Japan, Kawasaki City Museum has been collecting information on photography around the world and sometimes cooperative with foreign organization for contemporary photo-exhibitions, like in "Japanese Contemporary Photography"(1993 Kunsthaus Zźrich). There have been held photo-workshops in each level from beginner to the advanced and symposium or lecture on photography.

Address:: Kawasaki City Museum Department of Photography
1-2 Todoroki, Nakaharaku,Kawasaki City 211 Japan
tel.044-754-4500 fax.044-754-4533
Staff:: Masafumi FUKAGAWA (chief curator)
E-Mail : qzt06132@niftyserve.or.jp
Hanako HAYASHI (curator)