Step into the contemporary puzzle of Martin Margiela's first large-scale exhibition in Japan

Five spheres sit in a row in a glass cabinet. They are perfectly round – and covered entirely in hair neatly parted in a single tone, fading from deep black to faded grey. Just behind, the sunlit silhouette of a window frame can be traced through sheets of white plastic, taped from floor to ceiling, a number five scrawled in black pen.

Welcome to the enigmatic world of Martin Margiela. The name has long been synonymous not only with radical fashion expressions, but also conceptual explorations of imperfection, the beauty of the unfinished, time, transformation, memory, reuse, and the human body. And connecting it all? An impulse to spark questions rather than provide answers.

The visionary Antwerp artist and former fashion innovator is likely to prompt countless questions with his first large-scale exhibition in Japan, which unfolds across the living rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, staircases and basement of Kudan House, a historic 1927 residence in Tokyo.

‘Martin Margiela at Kudan House’ is a contemporary puzzle of collage, paintings, drawings, sculpture, assemblage and videos. From fur-wrapped bus stops to absent artworks leaving lightly shadowed traces, the installations explore the surreal, the abstract and the everyday, in dialogue with the spaces and voids, materials and stories written into the architecture.

‘I like to instil questions for the viewer,’ Margiela tells Wallpaper*. ‘An example may be Vanitas II – five spheres in silicone with hair implants that show the passing of time by the changing of hair colour.’ Referring to how the exhibition might imprint viewers as a whole, he adds: 'I hope it leaves a sense of surprise. Perhaps also a moment of reflection. If visitors leave with questions, then the exhibition has fulfilled its role.’

Margiela has longstanding ties with Japan. The creation of his label Maison Martin Margiela in 1988 quickly shook up the international fashion landscape, with expressions of deconstruction, inversion and process-over-product subverting conventional notions of beauty and completion.

In 2000, he opened an avant-garde Maison Martin Margiela store in a historic residence in the Ebisu district of Tokyo, with clothing installed alongside artworks through its domestic spaces. Eight years later, Margiela stepped away from the fashion world to commit himself fully to his practice as a visual artist.

Fast-forward to 2026 and his creative vision is once again unfolding in a Tokyo residence. His new exhibition journeys across four levels of Kudan House, a Spanish-style mansion in the Kudanshita district, designed a century ago by a trio of architects – Tachu Naito, Shichiro Kigo and Kenji Imai – for a prominent industrialist family.

A sense of incompletion marks the atmosphere from the start. After swapping shoes for slippers in the stone entrance, it is quickly apparent that the historic interior features – from fireplaces and arched windows to staircases – have been wrapped in white plastic sheets, marked with coloured tape and exhibit numbers in black pen.

The first artworks on view are Grey Steps I & III: clean-lined painting-style images of grey staircases, made from pieces of carpet, on two large canvases – both leaning against the white plastic-wrapped base of a grand staircase with curved marble handrails.

The journey continues upstairs, where a white wooden plinth has a shadow-like grey shape on its surface – part of his Phantom series, hinting at a trace of something once present, now absent.

'Only traces of existing art works are shown,' says Margiela. 'Descriptions on their side explain the absent work. The audience is inclined to visualise following its own interpretation.'

A network of small rooms contain further surprises – from a shadowed oil pastel on velvet-laminated canvas, framed in a wooden box with polyurethane foam; and Dust Cover, with unseen objects wrapped in caramel-toned artificial leather skai; to his Vanitas II series of faceless silicone spheres, wrapped in glossy hair with a neat parting down the middle, the colours fading one by one.

Even the bathroom is part of the visual experience: in a white tiled space, Torso III (Black), a silicone sculpture, amorphous and abstract, sits on a plinth, between the toilet and bathtub.

Other works include Black Nails Model, a row of large fingernail-shaped objects, made from famed Nymphenburg porcelain and enamel, on white plastic-wrapped furniture; and Bus Stop – a bus stop wrapped entirely in artificial fur, complete with a bench and 'dirty plexiglass.' Meanwhile, the Shore Shoe series taps into ideas of transformation and time, with washed up plastic shoes displayed on kitchen surfaces.

The atmosphere tilts in the basement. A sudden burst of a woman laughing with a manic edge cuts into the silence – an auditory thread that flows through a series of installations, guiding visitors towards the video installation Light Test, where a head entirely covered in hair is revealed as its source.

Throughout the exhibition, the house – its spaces, light and shadows – plays a key role. Traces of its architectural form are tangible at unexpected moments through white plastic – sunlight catching the arc of a window frame, the angled edge of a stone fireplace – at times, bringing to mind paper shoji screens.

As Margiela tells Wallpaper*: 'Kudan House is not just a container, it is part of the experience. Each room offers a different atmosphere. The works adapt to these environments and sometimes respond to them. I like the idea that visitors move through a domestic space, discovering works in an intimate way, rather than confronting them all at once.'

It’s an exhibition that feels perfectly at home in Japan, as he adds: 'Japan has always embodied a strong sensitivity to materials, craftsmanship, and imperfection. I feel close to this appreciation of authenticity and detail. It is also a place where modernity and tradition coexist naturally, which I find very inspiring.'

Margiela himself continues to remain famously low-key and invisible – with his artworks, scattered through the domestic spaces of Kudan House, leaving traces of his creative presence. 'Anonymity is essential to me in order to protect my privacy, vital for my creative freedom,' he says. 'I still have the same interests and obsessions as I did during my time in fashion, but the human body is no longer my sole medium of expression.'

“Martin Margiela at Kudan House” runs in Tokyo until 29 April.

The exhibition “Martin Margiela” will also open at Taka Ishii Gallery Kyoto from April 17 to May 16.