Tokyo Gendai at PACIFICO Yokohama, Exhibition Halls C/D: Marco Gallery’s wooden rider-and-horse installation on low curved plinths, staged beside the Maison Cinquantecinq dining lounge, the fair’s official food-and-beverage partner for 2026. Image courtesy of Tokyo Gendai.
The name always pointed at the capital. The hall never did.
Tokyo Gendai is open now at PACIFICO Yokohama, Halls C and D, 1-1-1 Minato Mirai, through 13 September, its fourth edition and the last on this waterfront. About sixty-nine galleries from Japan, Europe, the Americas, Asia, Oceania and South America fill five sectors. At the press conference, co-founder Magnus Renfrew, who helped launch the fair under the Art Assembly umbrella, said next year’s edition leaves Yokohama for Tokyo. Four editions on this waterfront end here.
If you flew in from Frieze Seoul earlier this month, the contrast is physical. COEX packs density into Gangnam. PACIFICO asks you to take the Minato Mirai Line, walk five to eight minutes from Minato Mirai Station through Queen’s Square, and give the hall a proper day. Do not sandwich Nezu Museum between two fair sessions. The convention centre will eat the afternoon.
“With our new autumn dates, we are starting a new chapter and welcoming the cultural season in Japan.”
Eri Takane, Fair Director of Tokyo Gendai, speaking to Observer ahead of the 2025 edition
Walk the Five Sectors Before You Chase Ginza
The floor still rewards a map, not a mood.
Galleries holds the multi-artist booths: Pace, Sadie Coles HQ, Taka Ishii Gallery, TARO NASU, Gana Art, Kaikai Kiki Gallery, KOSAKU KANECHIKA, KOTARO NUKAGA and peers who already keep Tokyo rooms or want Japanese collectors face to face. Hana ‘Flower’ stays with earlier- and mid-career presentations. Eda ‘Branch’ is thinner this year, with Ippodo gallery Tokyo and MIZOE ART GALLERY among the published names for more established or historically minded shows.
The useful novelty is Miki ‘Trunk’, new for 2026: works on paper, photography, drawing and prints, with dealers including BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY and Revolver Galería. Tane ‘Seed’, the digital sector, returns after a two-year absence. Paper and screens in the same week is a practical edit for collectors who already own enough large canvases and still want something that ships cleanly.
Opening-day coverage from Bijutsu Techo flagged Pace’s hang of Los Angeles painter Lauren Quinn; Kaikai Kiki’s presentation of Mr., the Japanese painter long associated with Takashi Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki studio; and MAKI GALLERY’s solo of Anne Kagioka Rigoulet, the Kamakura painter known for water-reflection surfaces, as early crowd magnets. Use those as waypoints, not a shopping list. The point of a last Yokohama edition is comparison: which booths still feel like Japan talking to itself, and which already rehearse a Tokyo-scale fair.
Keep Tokyo for the Evening, Yokohama for the Hall
Ticket math is simple enough for a phone note. Adult day admission is ¥5,000 at the door. Vernissage holders already paid ¥30,000 on 10 September for the preview plus unlimited public days. Friday’s first late close, 12:00–20:00, carried a ¥3,000 Evening Ticket from 16:00; Saturday runs 11:00–18:00 and Sunday 11:00–17:00. Students and published concessions sit lower; recheck tokyogendai.com before you queue.
SMBC Group remains principal partner; DIOR is among the premium partners; Maison Cinquantecinq, the Yoyogi-Uehara French bistro, runs the dining lounge you will walk past whether or not you eat. Partners do not buy the work. They do tell you the fair still has corporate ballast while sibling Taipei Dangdai sits in its 2026 pause. ART SG ran in January. Tokyo Gendai is the Assembly address that stayed open this September.
Sleep in Minato Mirai if you want morning bells. Sleep in Tokyo if gallery dinners matter more. Aman Tokyo and The Peninsula Tokyo put you on the right side of town for a Toyoko or Tokaido ride out and a calm return. From Shibuya, a limited-express Toyoko train through to Minato Mirai is roughly thirty-five minutes. From Tokyo Station, expect about half an hour with the Yokohama transfer. Give the hall one clean day; leave Nezu for another morning.
For the wider September argument, read Why Frieze Seoul Owns September. For how to use the city beyond the booth map, keep The Banquet Guide to Tokyo open. For who is actually buying, read The Collectors Shaping Contemporary Asian Art.
Sunday still looks like this hall. Next year it will not. Walk it while the waterfront still hosts the name.
