The Mori Contemporary Art Foundation (MoriCAF) and the Mori Art Museum will present a solo exhibition of work by Mari Katayama, winner of the first Mori Art Award Grand Prize. The show runs from 31 October 2026 to 28 March 2027 at the museum in Roppongi Hills, Tokyo.

The biennial award was established by MoriCAF in 2025 and is conceived by the foundation's late chairperson Mori Yoshiko to raise the international profile of mid-career Japanese artists. A Japan-based nomination committee first shortlisted candidates on the basis of exceptional exhibitions and works from the previous two years, after which an international jury chaired by Mori Art Museum director Kataoka Mami selected four finalists and, following an in-person screening, named Katayama the winner. The Grand Prize carries ¥10 million and the joint exhibition; the other finalists — Meiro Koizumi, mé, and Chikako Yamashiro — each received ¥1 million.

Katayama, based in Gunma, works with analogue photography and handcrafted practices such as embroidery and needlework to explore the boundaries of her own body, staging it as sculpture, mannequin, and social lens. The jury praised her compelling expansion of the body's limits through strength and affirmation. The exhibition centres on an installation that includes her 'tree of life' series (2024–), a recent body of work now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London — a factor the foundation identifies as central to her selection.

The exhibition joins a cluster of new autumn presentations at the Mori Art Museum, which reopens on the same day after a month-long closure. It is the award's first edition, and its outcome will set the tone for the prize's stated ambition: to turn recognition at home into sustained international momentum for its winners.