Since it was founded in the late 1980s, the Benesse Art Site Naoshima has earned global acclaim as a unique art destination, with works scattered across three remote Japanese islands in the Seto Inland Sea.
The project, credited with regenerating the communities and economies of a depopulating region, has until now primarily shown permanent installations by artists from Japan and the West. But opening on 31 May, the Naoshima New Museum of Art (NNMA) “shifts the focus to contemporary art from Asia, incorporating exhibitions that change in part at irregular intervals”, says Akiko Miki, the museum’s director.
Designed by Tadao Ando, the one-storey building has two underground floors and four galleries. It sits on a hilltop near the small port of Honmura.
“As the first museum to be located within a village on the island, NNMA further explores the vision of a museum that embodies the spirit of Naoshima—rooted in the local community yet open to the world,” Miki says.
The slowly rotating, untitled opening presentation centres around the concept of wellbeing. It features works by 12 artists and groups, including, from Japan, the ubiquitous Takashi Murakami and the manga-inspired painter Aida Makoto. Among the other artists are the Korean sculptor Do Ho Suh, the Chinese gunpowder artist Cai Guo-Qiang and the Dutch-Filipina video artist Martha Atienza. Works will be shown in the grounds and in the NNMA’s café as well as the main galleries.
NNMA aims to build local engagement in a village whose population has dwindled and contribute to the tourism generated by the existing projects. “We hope that people from within the island and various places domestically and internationally will visit repeatedly, fostering a space for encounters, exchange and collaboration,” says Miki, who was the senior and chief curator at Palais de Tokyo from 2000 to 2014, co-directed the Yokohama Triennale of 2017 and was the artistic director of its 2011 edition.
The site started in 1985 as the shared vision of the then Naoshima mayor and the founding president of Fukutake Publishing (now Benesse Holdings). From a campsite in 1989 and the Benesse House Museum in 1992, it has expanded to encompass institutions including the Lee Ufan Museum and the Teshima Art Museum, as well as several hotels.
- Naoshima New Museum of Art opens on 31 May