TOP 30th Anniversary Pedro Costa Innervisions

Aug. 28—Dec. 7, 2025

• Aug. 28—Dec. 7, 2025
• Closed Mondays (except when Monday falls on a holiday, in which case the museum is open and closed the following day)
• Admission：Adults ￥800(640)／College Students ￥640(510)／High School Students, Over 65 ￥400(320) *Prices in parenthesis apply to groups of 20 or more. (Reservation is required.) *Free for junior high school students or younger and holders of Japan’s disability identification cards (shogaisha techo) together with two caregiver. *Those over 65 years old receive free admission on the third Wednesday of every month by presenting proof of age at the ticket counter.

On this occasion, to mark the 30th anniversary of the grand opening of the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, we will be holding the exhibition Pedro Costa Innervisions. Representing Portugal, filmmaker Pedro Costa (1959–) has been highly acclaimed internationally not only for his cinema, but also for exhibitions such as Company, held in 2018 at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, and The Song of Pedro Costa, which from 2022 to 2023 toured various regions of Spain.
The title of this exhibit commemorates the album Innervisions (1973) by Stevie Wonder, whom Costa encountered in his teens and would become a great inspiration for him. The spirit of this album, which approaches the relationships between societies and individuals with music, deeply resonated with Costa’s praxis of cinema.
Theatrically released in Japan in 2004, In Vanda’s Room records the harsh everyday of a woman who, having migrated from the former Portuguese colony Cape Verde, lives in the Fontainhas quarter of the slums of Lisbon. Such films by Pedro Costa strongly contrast darkness and light in tranquil, yet meticulous compositions within which fragments of reality are salvaged and social structure keenly dissected, displaying new points of view.
This exhibit introduces cinematic works related to characters like Ventura, who take on vital roles in Costa’s oeuvre, and the places they live, in addition to the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum’s collection. Touching upon Costa’s cinematic expressions and their sociohistorical contexts, we arrived upon Innervisions as title and central motif.
Moreover, throughout the exhibit, in the Art Museum’s first floor hall, Carte Blanche, a series of films selected by Costa himself, will screen alongside a special program of Costa’s own renown works. It would be our great joy if this provides a valuable opportunity to experience from a new angle the power of film and the depth of Pedro Costa’s cinematic world.
In conclusion, as we open this exhibit, we would like to express our profound gratitude for the enormous gift of cooperation from Pedro Costa, as well as for the services of all who made this exhibit possible.






Pedro Costa, Minino macho, minino fêmea, 2005, 2-channel video projection, Collection of Tokyo Photographic Art Museum


Jacob Riis, A Down Town "Morgue” from the series How the Other Half Lives, 1880-1889, Gelatin silver print on developing-out paper, Collection of Tokyo Photographic Art Museum


Pedro Costa, Povo de Lava, 2015, Inkjet print on paper, Collection of the artist


Pedro Costa, As Filhas do Fogo (2019), 2019, 5-channel video projection (4:3) , Collection of the artist


Pedro Costa, The Daughters of Fire (2022), 2022, 3-channel video projection (16:9), Collection of the artist


Pedro Costa, The End of a Love Affair, 2003, Collection of the artist


Pedro Costa, Alto Cutelo, 2012, 2-channel video projection (4:3) , Collection of the artist


Pedro Costa, Casa de Lava – Scrapbook, 2010, Single-channel video (slide-show loop), Collection of the artist

*The schedule is subject to change. Any further changes will be announced.

Organized by Tokyo Photographic Art Museum operated by Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture
Supported by Embassy of Portugal in Japan and J-WAVE 81.3FM