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Ahead of Asia Week in Paris : four exhibitions to discover in April
From June 5 to 8, 2026, the 9th edition of Printemps Asiatique Paris will bring together a selection of leading galleries at Galerie Charpentier.
Four exhibitions presented in Paris from April offer a first glimpse of this upcoming event.
URUSHI - Tradition & Abstraction
Galerie Mingei
5-7 rue Visconti, 75006 Paris
April 10 – May 27, 2026 | Opening April 9
SAVE THE DATE !
I missed you, Ahn Seong-min
Magna Gallery Paris
25 rue de Beaune, 75007 Paris
March 19 – April 18, 2026
A Floral Prayer, Maiko Kitagawa
Galerie Taménaga
18 avenue Matignon, 75008 Paris
March 19 – April 18, 2026
Yūgen
Guillaume Castellano
34 rue Mazarine, 75006 Paris
April 9 – 12, 2026 | Opening April 9, 6–9 pm
SAVE THE DATE !
Galerie Mingei
Contemporary Japanese lacquer in the spotlight
Galerie Mingei presents URUSHI — Tradition & Abstraction (April 10 – May 27, 2026), an exhibition dedicated to contemporary Japanese lacquer, bringing together eleven leading artists from today’s scene in Japan.
The exhibition opens with a selection of historical lacquer works, before giving way to contemporary pieces—sculptures and wall works—that reflect the current renewal of artistic practices around urushi.
Through these works, the artists explore the inherent qualities of this material: the depth of surfaces, the subtlety of textures, and the presence of form. Built through successive layers, lacquer reveals here its full richness, balancing precision of gesture with a refined sensitivity to material.
Bringing together different generations, the exhibition highlights the diversity of contemporary approaches.
Among them, Keikou Nishimura, heir to a Kyoto lineage of lacquer artists, stands out for a practice in which carved wood and urushi enter into dialogue, forming dense compositions shaped through a long process of layering and polishing.
Rio Tashiro, a rising figure of the younger generation, develops a more experimental language: his sculptures, constructed through the accumulation of lacquer layers over lightweight structures, propose a geometric and contemporary vision of the human figure.
Alongside these two approaches, the exhibition also features works by Ken Noguchi, Hiroshi Kaneyasu, Wei Nan, Wang Linan, Nanami Seki, Elm Niimi, Okada Yūji, Kanon Notsu, and Toshimasa Kikuchi, reflecting the vitality of the current scene.
→ To learn more, an interview with Philippe Boudin offers insight into his career and his perspective on Japanese art: READ
NISHIMURA Keikou (born 1966)
Tawame #11
Wall-mounted artwork
Zelkova serrata (Keyaki wood), linen, clay, pigment and urushi lacquer
2025
66 x 66 x 2 (h) cm
© Galerie Mingei
TASHIRO Rio (born 1999)
Ethos#21
2025
Urushi lacquer, linen, Japanese paper and polystyrene foam
21 x 15 x 14 (h) cm
© Galerie Mingei
Magna Gallery Paris
Ahn Seong-min, between tradition and contemporary language
Located in the heart of the Carré Rive Gauche, Magna Gallery Paris develops a program dedicated to dialogues between East and West, through exhibitions of modern and contemporary art.
Until April 18, the gallery presents the work of Ahn Seong-min, an artist who reinterprets the Korean tradition of minhwa through a distinctly contemporary visual language.
Trained at Seoul National University and later at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), she situates her practice within an ongoing dialogue between pictorial heritage and contemporary exploration.
Her works incorporate familiar minhwa motifs—books, bowls, flowers, and clouds—which she does not seek to reproduce, but to reactivate. These elements unfold within open compositions, where forms appear to extend beyond the frame, creating imaginative spaces.
Her practice is rooted in the traditional technique of layered pigments on an animal-glue ground, enriched by the introduction of more contemporary tones, particularly fluorescent hues. This interplay between traditional process and modern palette gives rise to vibrant surfaces in which color plays a central role.
Through this approach, Ahn Seong-min offers a renewed reading of Korean imagery, at the intersection of Eastern and Western visual cultures.
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→ An interview with the gallery’s founders explores the origins of Magna Gallery Paris, shaped by the meeting of four complementary personalities: READ
Galerie Taménaga
Maiko Kitagawa, A Floral Prayer
Oiseau à deux têtes
Crayon gras sur papier marouflé sur panneau
117 x 91 cm
© Galerie Taménaga
Galerie Taménaga presents A Floral Prayer (March 26 – April 18, 2026), the first solo exhibition in Europe dedicated to the Japanese artist Maiko Kitagawa.
Originally from Saitama Prefecture, Kitagawa studied at Tokyo University of the Arts, where her discovery of printmaking proved to be a revelation. She subsequently developed a radical black-and-white practice, grounded in the contrast between ink and paper, nourished both by Japanese tradition and by Western references—from the tales of Grimm and Perrault to the works of Francisco Goya, Gustave Doré, and Odilon Redon.
Her work is based on a singular tool, the dermatograph, whose plastic qualities she exploits to shape the material itself. Through processes of spreading and smudging, the line dissolves in favor of deep surfaces from which forms gradually emerge. Drawing ceases to be line and becomes apparition.
Her works unfold a universe that is at once precise and dreamlike, inhabited by animals, hybrid creatures, and figures drawn from interwoven narratives. Between close observation of the living world and imagination, these presences appear alternately familiar and mysterious, suspended between reality and fiction.
Within this chiaroscuro space, references intersect and echo one another. Japanese legends subtly intertwine with Western influences, giving rise to compositions that read as silent narratives, inviting the viewer’s gaze to linger, wander, and rediscover what initially eludes perception.
A Floral Prayer thus emerges as a meditation on the image and what it suggests: a world in formation, where shadow does not conceal but reveals, and where each work opens onto a sensitive space, both fragile and deeply alive.
→ An interview with Ami and Kiyomaru Taménaga offers insight into their career paths and their vision: READ
Guillaume Castellano
Yūgen : an aesthetic of suggestion
A new participant of Asia Week in Paris, Guillaume Castellano joins this year’s fair with a specialization in Japanese art, ranging from Buddhist sculpture and ancient objects to modern painting.
Maintaining close ties with Japan for over a decade, the gallery selects works for their aesthetic quality, rarity, and historical significance, assisting collectors and institutions in building discerning collections.
From April 9 to 12, 2026, at 34 rue Mazarine, Guillaume Castellano presents Yūgen, an exhibition inspired by a Japanese aesthetic concept evoking a profound, subtle, and mysterious beauty—suggested rather than fully revealed.
Conceived as a sensory experience, the exhibition invites a contemplative approach, drawing attention to what emerges, recedes, and remains just beyond full perception.
Suzuribako
Edo period (18e siècle)
21 x 19 x 3.5 cm