The most ambitious sumō exhibition ever held in France explores the many facets of a fascinating phenomenon between sport and culture.
When French President Jacques Chirac received yokozuna Asashōryū Akinori at the Élysée Palace in 2007, cameras captured more than a diplomatic moment. They documented a cultural love affair between France and Japan that extends far beyond politics into sport, art, and spiritual practice.
That relationship finds rare visual expression in Sumō – L’équilibre absolu in a new exhibition at Musée des arts asiatiques from August 2025 through 1 February, 2026. More than 150 works spanning from the Edo period (1603 – 1868) to our times mark the first show of its kind in France to explore sumō with such breadth and curatorial ambition. At its heart are 80 photographs by Philippe Marinig documenting 18 years inside Tokyo’s exclusive training stables, paired with 40 paintings and prints by master artist Kinoshita Daimon, who has redefined how sumō is seen in contemporary visual culture.
Sumō is a discipline shaped as much by spiritual symbolism as by athletic prowess. It embodies a rigorous balance between intuition and technique, movement and stillness, modernity and tradition. Wrestlers pursue victory and an existential equilibrium between personal ambition and collective duty, between ancestral codes and the pressures of contemporary life. This philosophical core defines both the sport and the works of Philippe Marinig and Kinoshita Daimon, whose respective lenses and brushes trace sumō’s timeless poise and inner discipline.
Inside the Sacred Circle
Sumō also operates within rigid hierarchies and ancient rituals that outsiders rarely witness. The sport’s most accomplished wrestlers earn the title yokozuna (grand champion), sumō’s highest rank achieved by fewer than 80 men in recorded history – a figure that underscores sumō’s inaccessibility and reverence. Below them, the ōzeki, sekiwake, and other ranks create a pyramid of respect and achievement that governs every aspect of stable life.
Philippe Marinig has spent nearly two decades earning unprecedented access to this closed world. The French photographer’s patient approach opened doors to the traditionally private heya of Isegahama and Oguruma in Tokyo, where wrestlers called rikishi live communally under strict discipline.
Born in the small Provençal town of Château-Arnoux-Saint-Auban in 1962, Marinig discovered photography through his father before studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Marinig has long gravitated towards insular communities, like Senegalese wrestlers or Vietnamese martial artists, and finds in sumō a culmination of this pursuit. His work earned the prestigious Prix Roger Pic in 2010 and a residency at Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto.
Marinig’s photographs reveal sumō’s fundamental character: explosive confrontation erupting from a discipline anchored in silence, repetition, and self-denial. Before dawn, rikishi begin training that would challenge Olympic athletes, followed by domestic rituals of cleaning, cooking, and consuming chanko-nabe, the protein-rich stew that builds their massive frames.
His images capture both the volcanic power of the dohyō (the sacred ring where matches occur) and the quiet dignity of young men pursuing an ancient calling in modern Tokyo. A 2024 photograph of shokkiri (sumō comedy performance) reveals how choreographed humour conceals and preserves ritual forms older than written history.
Contemporary Masters
Complementing Marinig’s modern eye are works by Kinoshita Daimon, the print artist who has redefined sumō’s artistic representation. Born in Hokkaido in 1946, Kinoshita began as commercial illustrator “Mon-Ami” before dedicating himself to ukiyo-e(traditional woodblock prints) in the 1980s.
In 1985, the Japan Sumō Association commissioned Kinoshita to revitalize the centuries-old nishiki-e (multi-colour woodblock) tradition for Tokyo’s new Ryōgoku Kokugikan stadium. His work distils both the form and spirit of sumō’s modern titans, including portraits of legendary wrestlers like Chiyonofuji and Wakanohana.
Kinoshita’s contemporary paintings synthesise classical composition with modern immediacy. His 2024 portrait of Ōnosato Daiki exemplifies this approach: he fuses traditional palettes with digital finesse, creating images that feel at once timeless and immediate. He often depicts wrestlers in kimono holding umbrellas, honouring 19th-century master Toyohara Kunichika while asserting his own visual vocabulary.
Kisenosato: Glory, Burden, Legacy
The exhibition’s emotional centrepiece chronicles Kisenosato’s journey to yokozuna status. Born as Yutaka Hagiwara, he turned professional in 2002 at age 16 and assumed the shikona (sumō ring name) Kisenosato, loosely translated as “village of rare force”. He achieved sumō’s pinnacle in 2017, becoming the first native-born yokozuna in nearly two decades. Marinig documented this remarkable ascension, including the ceremonial presentation of the sacred tsuna rope marking yokozuna investiture.
Kisenosato’s promotion interrupted nearly two decades of Mongolian dominance, triggering celebrations revealing how deeply sumō remains embedded in Japanese cultural consciousness. However, persistent injuries forced his retirement in January 2019, closing a reign shaped as much by resilience as by physical adversity.
Yet Kisenosato’s legacy transcends tournament records. His dignity under pressure and post-retirement dedication to training the next generation as stable master Araiso embody sumō’s enduring principles. Marinig’s intimate photographs capture these qualities alongside the psychological burdens accompanying sumō’s highest honours.
Presidential Passion
Jacques Chirac’s genuine enthusiasm for sumō provides unexpected narrative depth. France’s president from 1995 to 2007 discovered the sport during official Japan visits and became obsessed. He followed tournaments religiously, memorised wrestler statistics, and attended competitions whenever possible.
What captivated Chirac was not spectacle, but symbolism: sumō as living heritage, codified discipline, and moral theatre. When he received an honorary yokozuna belt, it represented authentic cultural appreciation. The Nice exhibition alsofeatures diplomatic artefacts testifying to Chirac’s cultural diplomacy and Franco-Japanese affinity, presented through loans from the Jacques Chirac Museum in Sarran.
Among the highlights of the exhibition is the Soulages Vase, created in 2000 by the French painter and engraver Pierre Soulages upon Jacques Chirac’s commission. The first of only ten pieces ever crafted was presented in Tokyo by the president as the trophy for a Grand Prix of sumo. This striking porcelain work features a deep black glaze interrupted only by a chamfered ring of pure 24-carat gold, evoking a solitary sun, reflecting a synthesis of French abstraction and Japanese ritual.
Historical Foundations
The Nice exhibition contextualises contemporary sumō photography within its visual history. Late 19th-century masters like Kusakabe Kinbei established conventions persisting today: formal poses emphasising physical power, ceremonial garments highlighting social status, studio settings removing wrestlers from quotidian context. These Meiji-era images satisfied foreign curiosity at a time when Japan was opening to the world, while reinforcing an emerging sense of national identity amid rapid modernisation.
Edo-period ukiyo-e artists like Katsukawa Shunkō and Utagawa Kunisada created dynamic wrestler portraits functioning as proto-celebrity postcards, circulating the image of champions across an emerging print economy. These prints established visual traditions of dynamic poses, colourful costume details, and physical mass emphasis that continue to shape how sumō is rendered today.
Cultural Bridge
As Paris prepares for the 2026 Sumō Tournament – the first one after a 30-year hiatus – this Nice exhibition lays the aesthetic and historical foundation for Franco-Japanese sumō diplomacy. By presenting sumō as artistic subject rather than sporting spectacle, it prepares French audiences for deeper engagement with Japanese culture. The wrestlers competing in Paris will carry centuries of tradition into contemporary competition, much as these exhibition artists render ancestral forms visible through a contemporary visual grammar. (For British sumō fans, a tournament will be held at the London Royal Albert Hall from 15 – 19 October 2025.)
This cultural bridge has precedent. During the 1990s, French wrestler Pierre-Yves Boudarène competed professionally in Japan under the shikona (sumō ring name) Takamifune. His career was brief and he never reached the top divisions, but his presence marked an early instance of Western participation in professional sumō, which remains overwhelmingly dominated by Japanese and other East Asian wrestlers.
Nice’s Asian arts museum itself embodies the France-Japan connection. Designed by Kenzo Tange, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect whose work fused tradition and futurism, the white marble and glass structure sits on an artificial lake in Phoenix Park. Tange conceived the building as a combination of square (Earth) and circle (Sky), evoking a Tibetan mandala used for meditation. The architecture creates a contemplative bridge between cultures, making it an ideal vessel for an art form where physical struggle meets metaphysical order.
Sumō – L’équilibre absolu runs through February 1, 2026, inviting audiences into six months of layered exploration – part sport, part ceremony, wholly cultural encounter. A full programme of guided tours, workshops, calligraphy classes and film screenings accompanies the exhibition, offering audiences a deeper understanding of sumō’s aesthetic and philosophical resonance.
“Sacred giant, somewhere between colossus and divinity, the sumō wrestler is a figure of fascination. Between titanic clashes and ancestral rituals, he embodies a world of silence and discipline – a sacred universe, coded and complete, a true mirror of Japan’s soul.”
— Charles Ange Ginésy, President of the Department of Alpes-Maritimes
CONTACT DETAILS
Musée des Arts Asiatiques de Nice
405 Promenade des Anglais
06200 Nice
Tel: +33 (4) 89 04 55 20
All images courtesy Département 06
Please share on your social channels
Leave a Reply