First launched in 2024, the itinerant art event “BENTEN 2024”, which drew attention both in Japan and abroad, returns this year to Kabukicho under the new title “BENTEN 2 Art Night Kabukicho.”
“BENTEN 2024” transformed the entire city into a stage for artistic expression, where artists from Japan and around the world presented diverse works and performances. Kabukicho—a district that served as a base for avant-garde artists during Japan’s postwar reconstruction and that continues to foster a unique culture as the nation’s largest entertainment area—became the backdrop for three nights of cross-genre expression. The event revealed a new ecosystem of art emerging within the city’s vibrant energy and complex history.
This year’s theme is “Rewilding the City.”
As urbanization advances and society becomes increasingly managed and institutionalized, how can the primal impulses of creation and the freedom of artistic expression survive and evolve? Amid the chaos of Kabukicho, the event seeks to create a space where art reclaims its “wildness” and opens new possibilities.
Building on last year’s momentum, BENTEN 2 will once again make use of distinctive venues across the area—including Ojo Building, Shinjuku Kabukicho Noh Theater, Decameron, WHITEHOUSE, and Tokyo Desert—while expanding its scope even further. Artists will engage in dialogue with the urban spaces themselves, and visitors will be encouraged to explore the city on foot, encountering artworks and experiences that challenge the relationship between art and the urban environment.
Theme: Rewilding the City
Tokyo’s massive redevelopment—often described as a “once-in-a-century transformation”—has, through its dramatic restructuring, reinforced urban order while simultaneously erasing biodiversity and the “wild” nature of the city. Yet Kabukicho stands apart.
Amid redevelopment, the area has paradoxically “rewilded”: phenomena such as the street gatherings around Tōyoko Park, sex work on the streets, a surge in rats, and the rise of exploitative host clubs have made the neighborhood increasingly unruly.
Kabukicho may well be Tokyo’s only district undergoing “urban rewilding.”
While much of what occurs here is reported as misfortune or social disorder, Kabukicho has continually regenerated the gaps within systems—from the postwar black markets to underground subcultures, and the ongoing cat-and-mouse efforts to maintain public order. By simultaneously embracing capital and descending into chaos, the district expresses a uniquely unrestrained identity—an anarchic openness that, paradoxically, has made it one of Tokyo’s liveliest and most magnetic areas.
Through venues that have emerged alongside the wave of redevelopment, BENTEN 2 aims to examine both the history and contemporary reality of this “wildness.”
This theme is based on a conversation with urban sociologist Nozomi Semba.
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