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Limited-time revival of the "Public Arts Center"
[Eating and drinking]
Photo: Akizawa Reo
"Tokyo Art Community Center" was an art salon and bar run by contemporary artist Aida Makoto from 2010 to 2012, primarily catering to young artists, located where "Tokyo Desert" currently operates. Through the years, up until the present day in 2025, volunteers connected to Aida have carried on the spirit of the art community center, changing the way it operates. This time, to coincide with BENTEN2, the art community center will be revived for a limited time. Enjoy this deep Kabukicho spot with everyone from young artists to veterans, as well as a multitude of people involved in the arts.
Venue: Tokyo Desert Date: All days
⚫︎(Sat) 18:00-5:00
18:00-23:00: Makoto Aida, 23:00-5:00: Yuko Okada
⚫︎ November 2nd (Sun) 18:00-5:00
18:00-23:00: Keisuke Oka, 23:00-5:00: Rintaro Fuse + Tomotoshi
⚫︎11/3 (Monday/Holiday) 18:00-23:00)
19:00-23:00: Shiori Watanabe,Yu Takagi
Tickets: BENTEN2 Tickets
Makoto Aida
Born in Niigata Prefecture in 1965. His style, which freely moves between the boundaries of society and history, the modern and pre-modern, and the East and the West, presents unconventional contrasts and scathing criticism, and has garnered overwhelming support from a wide range of generations. His range of expression spans a wide range, including painting, photography, video, sculpture, and performance. While participating in solo and group exhibitions at international exhibitions and museums both in Japan and abroad, he has also written novels and essay collections in recent years.
Makoto Aida
Born in Niigata Prefecture in 1965. His style, which freely moves between the boundaries of society and history, the modern and pre-modern, and the East and the West, presents unconventional contrasts and scathing criticism, and has garnered overwhelming support from a wide range of generations. His range of expression spans a wide range, including painting, photography, video, sculpture, and performance. While participating in solo and group exhibitions at international exhibitions and museums both in Japan and abroad, he has also written novels and essay collections in recent years.
Keisuke Oka
Born in Yanagawa, Kyushu in 1965. First-class architect and self-builder. After graduating from the Department of Architecture at Ariake National College of Technology, he worked as a company employee, scaffolder, rebar worker, and formwork carpenter. He also studied dance under the butoh dancer Yukio Waguri. From 1995 to 2003, he ran Okagaro, a gallery where art can be viewed from the street. In 2005, he began construction of Arimasu Tobiru in Mita, Minato Ward, Tokyo, and built it himself with friends for 20 years.
His books include "Babel! The Man Who Built a Building on His Own" (Chikuma Shobo).
Tomotosi
Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1983. After graduating from university, he worked in architectural design and urban planning for over a decade. He began working as an artist in 2014, producing videos and performances as a "practice that intervenes in the rules that are ubiquitous in cities." He also opened and operates the Tomo Urban Museum in 2020, proposing "new ways of using cities."
Rintaro Fuse
Artist. Aiming to restore the sense of "loneliness" and "being together" that has emerged in cities since the release of smartphones, he has been creating video works, websites, curating exhibitions, publishing books, and planning events, all based on his own poetry and texts.
*Photo by Takehisa Naoki
Shiori Watanabe
Born in Tokyo in 1984. Completed a master’s degree at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2017.
Her representative installation work Sunroom connects a series of water tanks cultivating plants, fish, and bacteria collected from the Imperial Palace—an area that once served as Watanabe’s familiar playground—to create an artificial ecosystem through a circulating water system.
Underlying her practice is a unique observation of the relationships among extinction, conservation, and exclusion across species; the notion of the nation as a community viewed from an ecological perspective; and the interactions between nature and humans latent in folk customs and rituals.
Yuu TAKAGI
Born in Kyoto in 1994. Graduated from the Graduate School of Global Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts, receiving the Lalus Prize. Also, co-founder of The 5th floor. Currently serves as an assistant curator at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. Through practices beyond the confines of the white cube, he explores the possibilities of exhibitions as spaces for empathy. Notable curated exhibitions include "Le Jardin Convivial" (Kyoto, 2019), "Between Two Stools" (Tokyo, 2020), "Standing Ovation" (Shizuoka, 2021), "Aperto 17: SCAN THE WORLD" (Kanazawa, 2022), "Collection Exhibition 2: Electricity-Sound" (Kanazawa, 2023), "Everything is a Museum" (Kanazawa, 2024), and "SIDE CORE: Living road, Living space" (Kanazawa, 2024). Member of HB.
https://researchmap.jp/yuu_takagi
Photo by Jukan Tateisi
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