0512highway

0512highway: go to nausima island

“Benesse Art Site Naoshima” is a collective term for Benesse Corporation’s contemporary art activities in Naoshima, Kagawa. Since the opening of “Benesse House” in 1992, art sites have been made in Naoshima that confront nature, architecture and history. In Naoshima, artworks are created using the “site specific” method. In other words, invited artists visit and select a site in Naoshima, and then plan and produce work for that site. In the past, artists such as Walter De Maria, Jannis Kounellis, and Richard Long have used this method to create works that exist permanently after completion.

The “Art House Project,” which started in 1998, developed in the historical colony of Honmura using this “site specific” method. Whether the project involved houses that had been inhabited for a long time, or shrines and temples where people worshiped (or on the site of a previous temple), these sites became a stage and the architectural space itself became an artwork. In each case, art and architecture coexist and are equally important. Works are not merely exhibited inside of a building. In the fall of 2002, the final project of this series, the fourth Art House Project, “Go’o Shrine” was completed.

The art activities in Naoshima are usually site specific. Works made at “Benesse House” need to be strong in order to avoid being overpowered by Ando’s architecture. Instead, works engage with the architecture as a characteristic of the site. For the “Art House Project” and special exhibitions which are temporal such as “Standard,”* works should not exist in a museum as if in a green house. Instead, works require strength to exist on their own while directly confronting the existing conditions of the real world.

With these activities, I am not interested in forming the vision of the artists or my own vision. I am interested in finding “a site as the other,” of which we are not aware. We begin by specifically understanding each site of Naoshima, then decide what kind of artwork should be made, and then take any necessary action to realize the project. As a result, we find a rich reality. I am interested in creating sites that contain the opportunity to discover “richness and depth.”

*”Standard” Exhibition: September to December 2001. In this special exhibition, various houses, facilities and streets of the entire island were used as a stage.