On August 21, 2022, Kaikai Kiki is reviving GEISAI.

With the Geijutsu Dojo Grand Prix held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo in 2001 as the starting point, GEISAI, an event for discovering new artists, was held 28 times over 13 years up to #20 in 2014, interspersed with the GEISAI Museum, for which all the jurors were museum directors, as well as iterations in Miami, Basel, and Taiwan. GEISAI used to mean “festival of arts,” as the literal translation of the Japanese word, with the aim of creating a market in Japan, and I think the market has since come to its own to some extent as a result.

Therefore, we intend this year's GEISAI to be a little different from the past GEISAIs.

We will still be inviting the general public to come visit the exhibition, providing a place for them to see and buy artwork (admission will be free this time), and for other galleries to come and scout for artists. This part is the same as the GEISAI events in the past.

What is different this time is that the real aim of this event is to discover and nurture new creators based on Kaikai Kiki's evaluation criteria. Kaikai Kiki has been discovering, nurturing, and managing artists for the past 20 years. And so we have asked 8 artists we represent that have been enjoying active careers to serve as jurors, and we will be offering 100,000 JPY in prize money for each juror's award.
(Incidentally, all the artists on the jury are serving as volunteers.)

The following is the bullet-point outline of the event.

• We are holding GEISAI #21 for the first time after an 8 hiatus.
• GEISAI is an art competition event, held 25 times from 2002 to 2014 around the world.
• More than 100 of the past participants have gone on to become celebrated artists.
• The format of GEISAI is to have the exhibitors buy booths, display their work, and have them judged by the judges, while simultaneously exhibiting and selling their work on the spot.
• The organizer is Kaikai Kiki, a general art trading company.

As you can see, this GEISAI will be a little bit different from the past events, so I hope you will join us to see for your self.

Takashi Murakami
(Artist/President, Kaikai Kiki)