This was, along with 'go to Tokyo at some point', literally the first thing that I knew I was going to do in Japan this trip. The idea of a collection of islands more or less dedicated to art - and specifically contemporary art - was irresistible, and especially in such a scenic setting.
Naoshima
A very good experience. A mix of modern and contemporary art arranged around the island and collected in a few museums and buildings. Significantly, and much to the benefit of the whole, the major museums all share an architect in Tadao Ando, whose sensitive approach to working with landscape and light to integrate his buildings into existing space while working with the art that they contain (from Wikipedia: "Ando's architectural style is said to create a "haiku" effect, emphasizing nothingness and empty space to represent the beauty of simplicity. He favors designing complex (yet beautifully simple) spatial circulation while maintaining the appearance of simplicity.") is integral in particular to the Chichu Art Museum. Also nice was the way that other people were hopping between the same places in various orders, many taking advantage of hired bicycles to cover the hilly terrain, and recurring at the different attractions over the day.
I started at the Benesse House Museum because it was the earliest opening, having set my alarm to get the early ferry across. It's a wonderful setting and great building, and the art was pretty good - there's no obvious unifying theme but the 40 or so pieces arranged across the three floors hit a fair number of high points. The always intriguing Gerhard Richter is represented through a hauntingly blurred portrait of his daughter Betty (1991), there is a neat Cy Twombly ("Untitled I", 1968), and I was introduced to a few other artists through colourful, punchy pieces (Jennifer Bartlett, "Fish and Bread" 1989; Yukinori Yanagi, "The EC Flag Ant Farm #1" 1992-93, Sam Francis, "Blue" 1952-53). Also, neat: Jonathan Borofsky's "Three Chattering Men" (1986) which is just that - three sculptures with hinged motor-driven jaws muttering "chatter" over and over, broken occasionally by a sung-chanted hum.
In something of a circuit over a few kilometres, various outdoor sculptures and installations including Yayoi Kusama's two pumpkins (the yellow one was surprisingly stately and had real presence on its pier location), a bunch by Niki de Saint Phalle whose energy I liked (I first came across her only a couple of weeks ago in Martigny, also enjoyed the one at the Hakone Open Air Museum, and now these ones in Naoshima too) and a moving Walter de Maria piece installed in a chamber beneath a small rise - two dark granite reflective spheres, and on either side a gold leaf-covered standing wooden pillar ("Seen/Unseen Known/Unknown", 2000).
Then the Chichu Art Museum, which was amazing - the cultural highlight of my last twelve months at least and probably a fair bit longer. And, on its own terms, maybe the best modern/contemporary art museum I've ever visited despite its very small (but utterly perfectly chosen) selection. Everything worked towards that effect, from the entrance and the building spaces and gardens to how the individual artworks are showed in spaces purpose-designed for them, and all speaking to each other (it's all underground, no less - something of an Ando hallmark I think).
Lee Ufan Museum also made for a deep dialogue between the artworks and the space in which they were housed. I don't think these bare, zen-like sculpture/installation pieces of steel, concrete and stone (plus some paintings) would have worked half as well in an environment less simpatico. As it was, though, they resonated.
Brief visit to the Ando Museum, also designed (on request) by Ando himself - a conversion of a traditional house with a light and space-filled modern concrete interior which elaborated on his architectural practice and, given that he was responsible for all the key recent landmarks in Naoshima, by that fact also on the reimagining of the island in those terms.
And navigated to each of the 'art houses' in the Honmura area - six old houses located throughout a residential area each of which have been converted to showcase a contemporary installation. They included another Turrell, "Minamidera", where you're led into a pitch dark room and sit for several minutes while your eyes adjust before dim lights gradually emerge.
Teshima
Most of the smaller installations were closed on the day that I went so in substance this was just two main pieces, but they were worth the trip.
One was Christian Boltanski's "Les Archives du Coeur", one of a number of sites for this piece (including our very own MONA), in which you enter a dark room where one of the many thousand previously recorded and registered heartbeats of a participant is played, loudly and resonantly, as a suspended light bulb flickers in time and provides the only illumination. I took the option to record/register my own, which meant that I got to then hear it in the room immediately after. It felt quite profound.
And the other was the Teshima Art Museum which only houses one piece but it's a doozy: Rei Naito's "Matrix" (2010). Built into a hill, and exposed to the open air by two large circular spaces in the 'ceiling', it's essentially a large concrete cavern from the floors of which small streams of water periodically issue, meeting up with others and creating flows across the floors and arrangements of small pools which change over time. It's maybe 60 metres across and you experience it by walking through, sitting, lying amidst it. A very meditative and beautiful experience. Really left an impression.
Naoshima
A very good experience. A mix of modern and contemporary art arranged around the island and collected in a few museums and buildings. Significantly, and much to the benefit of the whole, the major museums all share an architect in Tadao Ando, whose sensitive approach to working with landscape and light to integrate his buildings into existing space while working with the art that they contain (from Wikipedia: "Ando's architectural style is said to create a "haiku" effect, emphasizing nothingness and empty space to represent the beauty of simplicity. He favors designing complex (yet beautifully simple) spatial circulation while maintaining the appearance of simplicity.") is integral in particular to the Chichu Art Museum. Also nice was the way that other people were hopping between the same places in various orders, many taking advantage of hired bicycles to cover the hilly terrain, and recurring at the different attractions over the day.
I started at the Benesse House Museum because it was the earliest opening, having set my alarm to get the early ferry across. It's a wonderful setting and great building, and the art was pretty good - there's no obvious unifying theme but the 40 or so pieces arranged across the three floors hit a fair number of high points. The always intriguing Gerhard Richter is represented through a hauntingly blurred portrait of his daughter Betty (1991), there is a neat Cy Twombly ("Untitled I", 1968), and I was introduced to a few other artists through colourful, punchy pieces (Jennifer Bartlett, "Fish and Bread" 1989; Yukinori Yanagi, "The EC Flag Ant Farm #1" 1992-93, Sam Francis, "Blue" 1952-53). Also, neat: Jonathan Borofsky's "Three Chattering Men" (1986) which is just that - three sculptures with hinged motor-driven jaws muttering "chatter" over and over, broken occasionally by a sung-chanted hum.
In something of a circuit over a few kilometres, various outdoor sculptures and installations including Yayoi Kusama's two pumpkins (the yellow one was surprisingly stately and had real presence on its pier location), a bunch by Niki de Saint Phalle whose energy I liked (I first came across her only a couple of weeks ago in Martigny, also enjoyed the one at the Hakone Open Air Museum, and now these ones in Naoshima too) and a moving Walter de Maria piece installed in a chamber beneath a small rise - two dark granite reflective spheres, and on either side a gold leaf-covered standing wooden pillar ("Seen/Unseen Known/Unknown", 2000).
Then the Chichu Art Museum, which was amazing - the cultural highlight of my last twelve months at least and probably a fair bit longer. And, on its own terms, maybe the best modern/contemporary art museum I've ever visited despite its very small (but utterly perfectly chosen) selection. Everything worked towards that effect, from the entrance and the building spaces and gardens to how the individual artworks are showed in spaces purpose-designed for them, and all speaking to each other (it's all underground, no less - something of an Ando hallmark I think).
- The centrepiece was the room housing five late Monet water-lily paintings (circa 1914-26) whose blurry colours and shades had a powerful impact on me - since that first encounter with Monet's late work at the Tate Modern several years ago, there's been an important place in my interior landscape for these, and this was an incredibly rich presentation, right down to the carefully chosen whites of the marble floor and frames.
- The Walter De Maria, "Time/Timeless/No Time" (2004), completes the other piece elsewhere on Naoshima, although they are arranged to form a virtual cross - a large (2.2m diameter) dark reflective granite sphere at the centre of a naturally lit room surrounded by 27 gold leaf-covered pillars. It was hypnotic.
- And three pieces by James Turrell: one of his "Afrum" projection pieces (1968), "Open Sky" (2004) in which the sun was dazzlingly bright when I visited, and "Open Field" (2000) which was one of his colour field pieces in which the viewer is immersed in colour and light and thereby experiences them as immediately as possible. (previously)
Lee Ufan Museum also made for a deep dialogue between the artworks and the space in which they were housed. I don't think these bare, zen-like sculpture/installation pieces of steel, concrete and stone (plus some paintings) would have worked half as well in an environment less simpatico. As it was, though, they resonated.
Brief visit to the Ando Museum, also designed (on request) by Ando himself - a conversion of a traditional house with a light and space-filled modern concrete interior which elaborated on his architectural practice and, given that he was responsible for all the key recent landmarks in Naoshima, by that fact also on the reimagining of the island in those terms.
And navigated to each of the 'art houses' in the Honmura area - six old houses located throughout a residential area each of which have been converted to showcase a contemporary installation. They included another Turrell, "Minamidera", where you're led into a pitch dark room and sit for several minutes while your eyes adjust before dim lights gradually emerge.
Teshima
Most of the smaller installations were closed on the day that I went so in substance this was just two main pieces, but they were worth the trip.
One was Christian Boltanski's "Les Archives du Coeur", one of a number of sites for this piece (including our very own MONA), in which you enter a dark room where one of the many thousand previously recorded and registered heartbeats of a participant is played, loudly and resonantly, as a suspended light bulb flickers in time and provides the only illumination. I took the option to record/register my own, which meant that I got to then hear it in the room immediately after. It felt quite profound.
And the other was the Teshima Art Museum which only houses one piece but it's a doozy: Rei Naito's "Matrix" (2010). Built into a hill, and exposed to the open air by two large circular spaces in the 'ceiling', it's essentially a large concrete cavern from the floors of which small streams of water periodically issue, meeting up with others and creating flows across the floors and arrangements of small pools which change over time. It's maybe 60 metres across and you experience it by walking through, sitting, lying amidst it. A very meditative and beautiful experience. Really left an impression.
