Isabel Choat/ The Guardian, UK
Among shrines, rice fields and abandoned buildings, contemporary art has transformed 12 rural islands into a creative paradise – the setting for the 2019 Setouchi Triennale
I’m sitting on a concrete floor watching water droplets as they skitter across the smooth surface. Around me, other people seem equally transfixed. They stand in silent contemplation staring at beads of water bubbling up from tiny holes in the floor, or lie gazing at the vast domed roof, where two oval openings let natural light flood in. The slightest movement echoes around the space. I take a pen out to make some notes and a member of staff suddenly appears at my side and indicates that I should put it away. Phones are also a strict no-no.
Teshima Art Museum turns the standard idea of what a museum is on its head. For a start it’s empty. Or to be precise, there is nothing on display. Instead of looking at art works or objects, the visitor is invited to contemplate nature in its purest form: light, water, air. The effect is deeply calming. After 20 minutes, I practically float out.
Outside, the museum is just as arresting. Curved and low lying, it looks both other-worldly and somehow part of the surrounding landscape. But perhaps the strangest aspect of the museum is its location – next to a rice terrace on a small island nearly two hours from the nearest city, Okayama, in western Japan.
And it’s not the only arty attraction in the area. This is one of 18 museums, galleries, installations and projects across three islands that together form a unique rural art paradise.
The story behind the Benesse Art Site Naoshima, to give the project its full name, is intriguing too. It started in the late 1980s when billionaire businessman Soichiro Fukutake began exploring the smaller islands of the Seto Inland Sea, the body of water that separates three of Japan’s four main islands. Fukutake wanted to transform three islands that had borne more than their fair share of the country’s rapid industrialisation – refineries were built on Naoshima and Inujima, and illegal waste was dumped on Teshima – and had then been forgotten.
He decided to do it through contemporary art, and persuaded architect Tadao Ando, AKA “the king of concrete”, to collaborate on Benesse House Museum on Naoshima.
High on a hill overlooking the sea, the museum is filled with modern art greats: Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Cy Twombly, but its most iconic piece is on the beach below: a giant yellow pumpkin by Japanese pop artist Yayoi Kusama, a surreal beacon jutting out into the sea. Another, red, pumpkin greets visitors as they disembark at the harbour, smart phone cameras at the ready – even the Naoshima ferry bears Kusama’s signature motif of dots. It’s close to the wacky I Love Yu public bathhouse, a collage of junkyard scrap and neon signs. Forgot your towel? You can buy one from the vending machine outside.Ando went on to create more architectural masterpieces, including Chichu Art Museum, a set of interlinked, half-buried buildings that house Fukutake’s personal collection of five Monet water lily paintings. For me, the most striking work at Chichu is the Walter de Maria room, a temple-like space with golden pillars mounted on the walls and steps leading up to a giant granite sphere. Here, as in other museums, the reverence for art – among both the young staff and visitors – is palpable. And after a while I’m relieved to step onto the cafe terrace and reconnect with simpler pleasures – the view of sea and distant land that looks like it’s been painted onto the horizon in shades of grey – and to choose between a coffee or a bright blue Sora-Iro Cola.
There is enough art on Naoshima alone to fill two days. Yet most visitors tick it off on a day trip as they whiz between Osaka, to the east, and Hiroshima, to the west. But it’s madness to make the epic journey and not see Teshima and Inujima, too. It may take a bit of planning to reach all the islands by ferry (see setouchi-artfest.jp for tips) but the reward is huge. And this year there is even more reason to linger. The 2019 Setouchi Triennale art festival will ramp up the creativity with an astonishing array of artworks – 200 in total, around half of them permanent – across 12 islands and two ports, Takamatsu and Uno. Unlike some art fairs, where glamour and wealth are on display as much as art and design, the Setouchi Triennale is firmly rooted in the history and character of the region. Projects will transform abandoned buildings, highlight artisanship and involve locals, including children.