Market dispatch·Kyoto
63 galleries, temple shows and a sold-out booth: Kyoto's art fair closes its biggest edition yet
Art Collaboration Kyoto closed its sixth edition on 9 November with 63 galleries from 18 countries, more than 100 linked programmes across the city, and sales including a €65,000 Broodthaers — as dealers and politicians push to turn the November fair into a year-round art hub.
Kyoto's bid to turn a former imperial capital into an international art destination reached its most ambitious point yet, as the sixth edition of Art Collaboration Kyoto closed on 9 November.
The three-day fair gathered 63 galleries from 18 countries and regions at the Kyoto International Conference Center, pairing Japanese and international galleries in shared booths. Hauser & Wirth appeared at the fair for the first time, with Tokyo gallery Taro Nasu, in a presentation centred on text and language, with work by Louise Bourgeois, Jenny Holzer, Glenn Ligon and Marcel Broodthaers.
Sales followed. A Broodthaers work sold for €65,000, a Ligon print for $32,000, and Keita Morimoto's paintings sold out at prices from $40,000 to $70,000 each. In the Kyoto Meetings section, Imura Art Gallery sold nine ceramic tea bowls by Shiro Tsujimura at ¥1 million apiece.
Beyond the convention centre, the fair spilled into the city's temples. Hauser & Wirth and local gallery Oscaar Mouligne showed Lorna Simpson at Daiko-in, part of the Daitoku-ji temple complex, where she made a new collage inspired by a Japanese tale from her childhood. Carlos/Ishikawa presented Issy Wood and Evelyn Taocheng Wang at Korin-in, while Modern Art and Ingleby Gallery showed Andrew Cranston at Ryosoku-in.
The surrounding programme shows how far the event has grown. When the fair began in 2021, about 33 art programmes ran alongside it; this year there were more than 100, according to Masako Ohishi, the fair's director of public affairs. Curation Fair Kyoto, a city-backed companion event, grew from 19 exhibitors to 33 across three temples.
Government backing is central to the push. Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs moved its headquarters to Kyoto in 2023, the prefecture sits on the fair's organising committee, and official agencies promote Kyoto Art Month across October and November. TeamLab Biovortex Kyoto opened near the station in 2025, and Superblue plans to open nearby in early 2027 with a James Turrell show. Whether a packed November can become a year-round market is unproven, but organisers aim to make Kyoto one of Asia's leading exchange hubs within five years.
