Naoshima, the Experimental Island

Aside from its natural beauty, Naoshima, in Japan's Seto Inland Sea, might justly be called an experimental island. Experimentation implies trial and error, successes and failures, of which there are legions.

My first stop on the island when I made a trip there several years ago, was to the improbably named The Man with the Red Tattoo Museum, a short walk from the quay at Miyanoura, the island's main port. The name referred to an 007 novel of the same title that was set on Naoshima.

The author, Raymond Benson, took over the spy franchise from Ian Fleming, and a couple of his novel creations based on the MI5 character, have been made into movies. I read the story in preparation for that first visit to the island, and it wasn't bad at all, but I wondered what Fleming, a touchy perfectionist, who reportedly objected to the casting of Sean Connery as leading man in the early films, would have thought of it.

Sadly, the museum, a noble failure inspired by a love of Bond novels and movies, is no longer there. As far as I could tell, the site is now home to a restaurant.

From to Decline and Reinvention

The island, host at one time to the exiled Emperor Sutoku according to oral tradition, was in deep trouble by the late 1980s. With its population dwindling to barely 3,000, it was best known for a copper refinery and waste recycling plant.

The transformation of the island began in 1992 with the opening of the upmarket hotel Benesse House by Japanese education company Benesse. A series of well-funded and supported art projects followed.

Heading south from the port is a pleasant journey, the hills manageable, the raised views of empty beaches and wind-sculptured dunes, a good introduction to the island's scenic side.

Naoshima — *"Cultural Melting Bath," a rock cluster by Cai Guo Qiang, contains a hot bath. (Photo ©Stephen Mansfield)*

Cycling along the coastal road, several public installations materialize, one of them a sign directing visitors through a glade to the Cultural Melting Bath, an open-air Jacuzzi work, by the artist Cai Guo Qiang. Surrounded, almost like a Druid's circle, by 36 limestone rocks brought from China, I vividly recall this installation from my first trip, happy now to see that it has endured.

Monet and the Museum Complex

A turn in the winding road leads to Chichu Art Museum. This was commissioned by Benesse's president to house four paintings in Monet's seemingly endless Water Lillies series. The corridors leading to the paintings are lined with sculptures and installations by important contemporary artists like James Turrell and Walter de Maria.

Chuchu Garden, sited on the approach to the museum, hints at the kind of flowers and plants cultivated by Monet in his garden at Giverny. I'm wondering if Monet's obsession with water-lilies was not unlike Yayoi Kusama's compulsive duplication of polka dots and pumpkins.

There are several of her sculptures on the island, the most prominent a 2.5 meter-wide, black and yellow pumpkin, standing at the end of a concrete pier facing the Inland Sea.

Architecture in the Landscape

Further up the road I come across the Benesse House Museum, designed by Tadao Ando. For many visitors, this is one of the cultural highlights of the island.

A passionate advocate of treated concrete, Ando has said of his Naoshima projects, that he wishes to "sink the architecture into the earth so that it matches the shape of the land." It is up to the visitor to judge whether concrete, a material that erodes and discolors over the years, is the best material to match the island's natural environment.

Major Contemporary Works

Overlooking the Inland Sea, the museum boasts the work of world-class artists like Bruce Nauman, Jasper Johns, and David Hockney. It's a short ride from here to the Lee Ufan Museum, featuring arresting works in stone and steel by the Japan based Korean artist.

Passing a converted dental clinic with a Statue of Liberty soaring through its inner nest of beams and rafters, the road swerves inland, rejoining the coast as it hits the eastern shoreline and the route to the old fishing village of Honmura.

The Art House Project

The mission statement for those involved in the "Art House Project" in Honmura was to restore aging properties and transform them into works of art under the creative direction of specific artists and designers.

Architecture and space are the dominant factors throughout, with those involved in the project making the utmost effort to collaborate with the occupants, and create environments that are in harmony with Japanese aesthetics and traditions.

The project, which includes the conversion of some private homes into galleries and cafes, appears to have been a highly successful art-community endeavor.

Apart from giving immense pleasure to visitors, these permanent exhibitions should guarantee the longevity of the buildings themselves. The village is full of detail, so much in fact, that it is easy to miss things.

It was only after an hour or so that I started to notice, for example, that the "noren," or hanging entrance curtains to homes, galleries and stores were of an extraordinary quality. Later I discovered that the curtains, individualized for each building, were designed and handmade by the textile artist Yoko Kano. And there are over fifty of them.

A Space for Experimentation

In reinventing its identity, and to some extent that of the islanders themselves, Naoshima has achieved a rare degree of autarchy that may only be possible on small islands like this.

German philosopher and cultural theorist, Peter Sloterdijk, wrote in regard to Naoshima, that "islands have afforded man the opportunity of rejuvenating culture on a smaller scale."

The inordinate degree of sequestration afforded by island life also means a partial disengagement from mainland rules and standards, a liberation that provides ideal circumstances for ongoing experimentation, for visitors to recharge body and mind through an immersion in nature and art.