The founders of the alternative art fair Basel Social Club are launching a new project in Japan, as part of Tokyo Art Week.
Tokyo Jazz Club will take place 1-8 November in a former capsule hotel in the historic Jimbocho neighbourhood. Taking a lead from Basel Social Club, it will bring together contemporary art, performance, music and food.
“Tokyo is the natural choice for the continued evolution of the ideas we have developed through Basel Social Club,” says co-founder Robbie Okuda Fitzpatrick in a statement. “In recent years, Art Week Tokyo has helped turn the Japanese capital into a magnet for the global art community, with international artists and galleries eager to exhibit, connect, and participate in the city’s vibrant discourse. Tokyo Jazz Club builds on those exchanges while responding to the city’s remarkable cultural landscape.”
The programme at Tokyo Jazz Club will “privilege experience over spectacle” says co-founder Yael Salomonowitz. “Throughout the building, artists activate spaces through music, movement, sound and ritual, creating moments of encounter that unfold between performers and audiences. Rather than separating exhibition and performance, we want to create an environment where both exist as part of the same shared world.”
Basel Social Club started in 2022 as a more experimental alternative to the annual Art Basel art fair. Each of its five editions so far have been held in a different venue, from a former mayonnaise factory to a field on the outskirts of the city. This year’s edition took place in a disused office building near Basel’s main train station.
Although works are for sale at Basel Social Club, they are shown in a less formal setting, mixed with performances, events and food and drink. Since the initiative launched, similar events have sprung up in other cities.
The Mori Art Museum is hosting an exhibition of Mariko Mori (31 October-28 March 2027) Image: Mariko Mori’s Wave UFO (1999–2002). Installation view, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, 2003. Photo: Richard Learoyd
Tokyo Jazz Club is being held in partnership with Art Week Tokyo, which takes place 4-8 November. This year’s event is the largest yet, spanning 55 venues including museums and commercial art galleries. Exhibitions include a show of Nam June Paik at the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, a group exhibition Seeds and Roots: How to Cultivate a City at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, and a retrospective of Mariko Mori at the Mori Art Museum.
The centrepiece AWT Focus platform will this year include 10 projects by invited curators including Japanese queer feminist collective Multiple Spirits, the British writer and curator Ekow Eshun and Jeremy Strick, the former director of the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. Art Week Tokyo will also feature a pop-up bar designed by architect Kae Ito an offering artist-inspired cocktails. A network of free buses will connect the venues.
