Naoshima Island -- Day 2

We had breakfast in the Oval this morning.  I forgot to mention that when we arrived, we had to reserve breakfast, i.e. which restaurant we wanted for each day, and whether we wanted Japanese or American.  Deciding breakfast 3 days in advance would have been hard for most people but, once again, played right to my strengths!  Since they have to bring all the breakfast stuff up the monorail, it wasn't much of a selection, but the view was lovely, so we didn't mind.

Today is cooler than yesterday and a perfect day for touring the island.  We decided to stay on Naoshima and focus on the art here.  We started at the Chi Chu Museum.  Also designed by architect Ando, this museum truly achieves the goal of melding architecture, art and nature.  Indeed, it seemed to hit the themes we've come to take as Naoshima's themes - light, space, geometric shapes ... and cement blocks.  What's quite unusual is that the building is mainly underground.  The view from the top is a bunch of geometric shapes - kind of like kids' building blocks - but you never really see this, you just enter the shapes and move through them on various stairways and passageways.  It's also not a museum in a classical sense in that there are only 3 artists, and they are mainly installation pieces.

First, we saw the art by James Turrell.  He had 3 installations.  He thinks mainly about light.  I would try to describe them, but it's simply too hard.  Second, there was a gallery of Monet water lilies.  The room was huge - all white walls, white tiled floors, natural light, and one Monet per wall.  It was a glorious space in which to see them.  Last was a gallery by Walter De Maria, who also had done a sculpture we put on the blog yesterday - the giant granite ball with our shadows.  This one had a giant granite ball in the center, and a whole bunch of gold painted columns in various geometric shapes around the edge.  We came across a gal on her knees in near tears, kneeling and bowing at the entrance, so we take it that it is transcendent .. for some people!  Lenny and I were convinced that the geometric gold columns (with 3, 4, or 5 sides) were some kind of secret code, but we couldn't work it out.

Taken together, along with the architecture, I thought the whole was quite remarkable.  I liked the idea that they all were about light in the end - even the Monet paintings.  The various geometries of the building and the art worked well together.  The various light sculptures paired well with the natural light.  All in all, a unique experience.

If you're wondering why I've posted so few photos, it's because they are not allowed.  This seems to be true throughout Naoshima.  On the one hand I found myself annoyed by this general rule, and snuck photos in some places.  (Alas, you viewed some of them yesterday, so you are now equally guilty).  On the other hand, I'm perfectly happy that OTHERS cannot take photos so that the experience of the art doesn't become all about selfies, silly photos, group photos, special angles, shutters clicking, etc.  It's actually quite a relief.

Next we went to another Ando-designed museum, the Lee Ufan Museum.  This one was less impressive.  Outside was an iron plate, a large stone and a tall, thin obelisk, making me think immediately that it was about "paper-scissors-stone".  Inside, there were some pretty nondescript drawings, and more plates and rocks in various relationships to each other.  Didn't do much for me.  We're getting to know the Ando architectural style, however, particularly his passion for large, concrete blocks.

From there, we hopped the shuttle down to Park, the other buildings for the Benesse House Museum/Hotel (remember .. I told you about these before ... Park and Beach).  We walked in and saw a life size sculpture by one of my favorite artists, Antony Gormley, so it was like greeting an old friend.

In the shuttle bus on the way there, I happened to glance out the window and notice on a pocket beach below that there were two small boats, one black and one yellow.  They were the same boats from the painting yesterday!  I was thoroughly amused by this realization.  It was as if the artist was winking at me.  It wasn't mentioned anywhere that part of that piece of art existed so far from the museum - it's not on any of the maps.  If you hadn't seen the piece in the museum, these boats would look like nothing.  But I immediately recognized them as yet another dimension, perhaps the 4th dimension, of the 3D piece that I had loved yesterday.  We went back later to get a photo.

At Park - sorry, but we're back there - we popped over to see the art piece that has become the symbol of Benesse and Naoshima: a giant orange pumpkin with black polka dots.  It sits on the edge of a dock, with a backdrop of the sea.  There's something quite whimsical and satisfying about it, so I can see what it has become so popular.  Of course, here we were able to take our photo.

There's a bunch more outdoor sculpture in the Park/Beach area, which we perused, before taking another shuttle into the town, Honmura.

We went to Honmura to see the Art House Project, which is a collective that took over a bunch of dilapidated houses or empty lots and turned them over to artists to create art projects.  We purchased a kind of a passport at the beginning, and then went from house to house, where the passport was stamped.  We managed to see all 6 regular houses (there was 1 that had required reservations, which we didn't know), and in the process pretty much saw the whole town, including a few lovely shrines.

This idea is really cool.  We liked some of the houses more than others, of course, but the experience is super fun (I won't try to describe them ... TMI).  I decided that this would be a great idea to try in Detroit, where there are plenty of available abandoned houses!

We also visited the small museum about architect Tadao Ando, which itself was built of the now-familiar concrete blocks, but didn't show much of his other work.

We stopped for lunch in a small local cafe.  There were only a few items on the menu, so I ordered a rice omelette, not being entirely sure what I'd get.  Well, it was a huge mound of rice, with some egg on the outside, surrounded by tomato sauce.  Lenny's theory was that the rice was hot and they put the egg over the top, which cooked the egg.

One of the things that I love about this place is that you keep finding art in unexpected places.  We stopped at a "resting stop" in town (to rest!) and noticed string attached to the wall as a charming sculpture, with a string signature by the artist. 

One of the things that surprises me is that there are no galleries or workshops or craftspeople.  You would think that the locals would have taken advantage of all the visitors to create some opportunities to make art for sale.  While there certainly are other tourists here, generally it's not very crowded, and we've enjoyed having many of the art installations mainly to ourselves.  But clearly the whole area has benefited from becoming an art tourist destination, but you can see that capitalism is not yet fully in gear.

We head back down to Park soon for dinner at the French restaurant (reserved in advance, of course).  Between now and then, I have a good hour to plan tomorrow.  Given the complications of the ferries, I'll need it!

-- Donna