Miwa Akihiro and Sisterhood Featured in Japan Special Display: Details of National Art Center Tokyo's 'DIVA' Exhibition Announced
The National Art Center Tokyo has announced details of its 2027 'DIVA' exhibition, featuring a Japan special display on Miwa Akihiro and sisterhood.Summary
The 'DIVA' exhibition, organized and produced by London's Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), will tour to the National Art Center in Roppongi, Tokyo, from March 24 to July 19, 2027. The exhibition examines the approximately 200-year history of the term 'diva'—originally used for female singers with overwhelming vocal power and presence in 19th-century opera—from perspectives of fashion, society, and gender. About 280 items from V&A holdings and private collections will be assembled, centered on roughly 60 rare costumes worn by figures such as Maria Callas, Marilyn Monroe, Adele, Lady Gaga, Elton John, Rihanna, and Björk, along with photographs, videos, magazines, posters, LPs, and prints modeled on these stars. Approximately 100 divas emerge three-dimensionally through diverse works. The exhibition is structured in two acts. Act 1, 'The Birth of the Diva,' unfolds in six chapters tracing the contours of the word and the evolution of its image from 19th-century opera singers to 20th-century show business performers. Act 2, 'The Rebirth and Revival of the Diva,' also in six chapters, follows the divas' journey from 1960s second-wave feminism through the civil rights movement to the present, highlighting how their expressions became powerful weapons in struggles for sexual and racial liberation and recognition of diverse ways of living. A Japan special display focuses on Miwa Akihiro and sisterhood.
(Source：美術手帖)