YOKOHAMA, Japan — The recently opened 2020 Yokohama Triennale is an ambitious affair; featuring works by 67 artists, about one-sixth of whom are Japanese, it is being presented at the Yokohama Museum of Art, near the waterfront of this large port city south of Tokyo, and at Plot 48, a nearby, temporarily repurposed, former commercial building. (An installation by the Egyptian artist Marianne Fahmy is on view at a third venue, the NYK Maritime Museum, a few blocks away from this zone, and, in the digital realm, the Triennale’s website offers Episōdos, a series of performance-art videos.) About half of the artists who are taking part in this big show, which will remain on view through October 11, are presenting their work for the first time in Japan.
This triennale has been curated by Raqs Media Collective — Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta — a New Delhi-based trio that was formed in the early 1990s. In the past, this team’s members, who are interested in urban life, media and technology, and contemporary engagement with the histories of their homeland and the wider South Asia region, have produced documentary films and works of art in various genres and media.