• Ideas
  • Nov 12, 2012

Field Trip: Naoshima

The windswept island of Naoshima, isolated in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, is an unlikely site for an arts center. But thanks to Soichiro Fukutake, president of the Benesse Corporation, Naoshima is the nucleus of Japan’s alternative contemporary arts scene. 

In 1998, when Naoshima was marked only by its languishing fishing industry, Fukutake established the Benesse House Museum. High on a rocky, isolated cliff overlooking the sea, Benesse House comprises two innovative, half-buried structures designed by Tadao Ando that combine an elegant modern museum with a boutique hotel. Many of the artworks in Benesse House Museum were commissioned by Fukutake. The art flows seamlessly from the museum itself into the airy hotel rooms. The permanent collection includes works by Jannis Kounellis, Kan Yasuda, Richard Long, Jennifer Bartlett, Yukinori Yanagi and Bruce Nauman, to name a few. In its first year of operation, Benesse launched its groundbreaking Art House Project in the nearby village of Honmura. This project invited select artists to integrate their own unique vision within the literal framework of traditional Japanese houses.