Tarō Okamoto (1911–1996) was a Japanese painter, sculptor, muralist, photographer, writer and researcher. Arriving in Paris in 1929, he gravitated towards the abstract and surrealist movements, and in 1938 trained with Marcel Mauss and Paul Rivet in the ethnology laboratory of the Musée de l'Homme. At the same time, he became close to Georges Bataille and joined the Acéphale secret society. He left France in 1940 to return to Japan, where within a decade he would become one of the central figures of the artistic avant-garde, federating several discussion groups in a country that was rebuilding itself.

In an unprecedented dialogue between several of his works and the museum's collections, the exhibition paints a portrait of a major Japanese artist, a whimsical and all-round creator who has remained unknown in France. The exhibition focuses on the period between 1930 and 1970, with the emblematic Tower of the Sun as its vanishing point. This monumental sculpture, built for the 1970 Osaka World Exposition, housed a mysterious underground exhibition of masks and statues.