Traveling in Japan: Naoshima

Naoshima is a Japanese success story. Prior to the late 1980s, Naoshima was experiencing a more-than-gradual decline in population like many other small towns in the developed and developing worlds. People are having fewer children and more people are moving to the cities for work. Naoshima, being a small island with a small population, was certainly not immune to these trends.

However, according to the Benesse Museum website, a joint decision was made by Benesse Holdings and the local administration of Naoshima in 1985 to develop the southern part of the island as a cultural draw for visitors. This eventually turned into the purchase of land and the development of several art museums and installations.

Now, according to NPR, the island has seen not only a surge in their economy by way of tourism and cultural events based around the island's art museums and projects, but the island has also experienced a slight increase in their population.

My trip to Naoshima from Hiroshima included two trains, a ferry, and a bus. I started the morning in Hiroshima and took the Shinkansen train (bullet train) to Okayama. Then, I transferred to a local train to Uno Station. From there, I took a 20-minute ferry to Naoshima. After getting off the ferry, I took a short bus ride from Miyanoura to Honmura. Without much time to rest, I checked into my hostel and then went back out to catch a bus to the southern part of the island where the island's most well-known museums are - the location purchased by Benesse Holdings, as earlier mentioned.

As the bus made its way towards the art museums, I noticed many art installations spread throughout the beachfront. I would explore these later in the day, but they served to evoke a sense of the otherworldly as if they were alien structures on another planet. Considering how empty much of the landscape was, they seemed somewhat out of place, but they had the effect of grabbing your attention and forcing you to consider the landscape differently than you otherwise would. 

The three museums, especially the Chichu Museum and the Lee Ufan Museum, were essentially art projects in and of themselves. Since the art museums were designed specifically for different pieces of art, the way in which you experience the art is designed into the buildings. This includes the use of artificial and natural light, the use of angles and dimensions, and even the use of building materials themselves (a LOT of concrete!).

The museum which bears the namesake of the company which purchased the land in order to build the museums was the first museum I went to. Benesse Museum is the most "normal" of the three museums in the area in that there is not too much that would necessarily distinguish it architecturally from other modern art museums I've visited. This museum held the most pieces of any three of the museums I visited. Two parts of the museum particularly stick out in my mind. The first is that there is an area outdoors which has two concrete walls that are missing sections to give a view of the ocean. The art that is hanging on these walls were photographs of oceanic horizons. Very cool idea. The other part that I thought was intriguing was a painting of a beach with two small wooden boats, one yellow and one black. In front of the painting were life-sized models of these boats. Then, when I went outside to the aforementioned area, I saw that two more models of these boats were down at the beach a couple hundred yards away from the museum.

Chichu felt like a maze at times. I was certainly not the only one to get lost as I saw many people confusedly walking around presumably looking for exits and/or bathrooms. I almost feel like it was a practical joke played on us by the architect, but then again, as many of the art installations in Chichu were meant to slightly derange the senses, I wonder if it was just another way in which the building itself interacted with the art that it was intended to hold and the people experiencing it. The most "normal" pieces (i.e. canvas paintings) they had were three or four very large Monet pieces. Most of the other art they had was installations. One spellbinding installation they had appeared to just be a blue screen projected against the wall. This was the only part of the museum that required standing in line. When I approached it, I thought, "Did I just stand in line for a blue screen?!" However, after we walked up to it, we were able to walk INTO it. It was actually a room. My jaw definitely dropped. The artist behind this installation, James Turrell, is known for playing with light and space in his work. I can see why!

The Lee Ufan Museum was by far the most minimal of the three museums while also holding the most minimal art of the three museums. Approaching the museum, it seems like an isolated bunker for the CIA or some other secretive organization. It's a nondescript and austere concrete building. Likewise, the art it houses is similarly minimal, focusing on recurring patterns and natural earthen materials. Again, the architect and artist worked in concert to design a building specifically for the artist's work. This was the smallest of the three museums and, I regret to say, perhaps the only one not entirely worth the price of admission.

After I returned to my hostel in Honmura, I decided to take the walking tour of art houses. These are old houses that were bought up by houses and essentially turned into works of art. One house had been radically changed by paint and added materials. There was even as a model of the Statue of Liberty several meters tall that had put into it. Another house had been converted (by the aforementioned James Turrell) to a dark room in which the visitors' senses are deranged as they gradually become accustomed to the low light in a large room.