Craft and Art: Philosophies for Life
Go for Kogei 2024 features works by an exciting cast of craftspeople, designers, and artists. This year’s exhibition presents visitors with a nuanced view of the adjacent fields of contemporary craft and art, placing a renewed emphasis on material, technique, utility, and expression—the defining characteristics of modern crafts. The exhibition consists of multiple venues in two areas: the Iwase Area (Toyama), which was featured in last year’s exhibition, and the Higashiyama Area (Kanazawa), which is a new addition. Unlike a neutral museum environment, both areas are defined by traditional cityscapes that reflect the daily lives of residents. By inserting contemporary craft and art into this milieu, the exhibition transforms the familiar landscapes of each district.
The Iwase Area offers visitors a chance to enjoy local sake and food alongside site-specific installations that play off the district’s unique architecture and scenery. Meanwhile, the Higashiyama Area plumbs the depths of this year’s theme of “Craft and Art: Philosophies for Life,” featuring event programs that build off of Go for Kogei’s 2021 project Craft and Design: Kogei in Daily Life.
We hope the exhibition will give visitors a new perspective on the value and meaning of craft and art in contemporary life. Visitors can witness how works of craft, which usually exist in the miscellaneous spaces of daily life—mingling with light, weather, scent, and sound—can transcend ornamentation to meld with the life of the city, appearing as social objects with new value and meaning.

Highlights
37 Artists Representing the Full Spectrum of Craft and Art
Go for Kogei 2024 explores profound concepts under the theme “Craft and Art: Philosophies for Life.” This year’s lineup includes 37 creators from an unprecedented range of backgrounds—artisans, craftspeople, designers, and contemporary artists—participating as 15 solo artists and 4 groups.

Curated Experiences that Blend Food, Craft, and Art
In the Iwase Area, Go for Kogei builds on past initiatives to offer engaging site-specific installations that interact with the surrounding cityscape and scenery to create multisensory experiences blending local lifestyles and food culture with craft and art.

Programs Showcasing the Diverse Forms of Value Found in Crafts
Five projects are being held in the Toyama Area to highlight the relationship between objects and context. Visitors will discover the diverse forms of value found in crafts, not only as practical, physical objects, but as extensions of the histories, cultures, environments, and regional contexts they come from.