Katayama Mari has been awarded the inaugural Mori Art Award Grand Prize. She will receive ¥10 million and an exhibition of her work organised by Mori Contemporary Art Foundation (MoriCAF) and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Katayama was selected from a shortlist that also included Koizumo Meiro, 目[mé] and Yamashiro Chikako. They will each receive a prize of ¥1 million.
Based in Gunma, Katayama Mari uses photography and handmade and sewn sculptural objects to challenge social norms about what is natural, artificial and correct. Her work centres the daily lived experience of her body, which she treats as living sculpture, mannequin and social lens.
The jury was chaired by Kataoka Mami, director of Mori Art Museum, and composed of Rhana Devenport, former director of Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Glenn D. Lowry, director emeritus of MoMA, New York; Frances Morris, former director of Tate Modern, London; Suhanya Raffel, director of M+, Hong Kong and Eugene Tan, director of National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum.
The biennial Mori Art Award, created in 2025 by MoriCAF and now in its first edition, aims to recognise mid-career contemporary artists in Japan and further their international status.
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