Art Archipelago

A forgotten corner of Japan has been transformed by art, architecture and nature – brought together with exquisite consequences.

- Thomas Seear-Budd

Situated in the Seto Inland Sea of Southern Japan, Naoshima and its sibling islands have become firmly ingrained in contemporary art and architecture, thanks to the vision of reclusive Japanese billionaire Soichiro Fukutake.

A resident of New Zealand since 2009, Fukutake is the former director of Benesse Corporation, an education and publishing business known for its patronage of the arts. Over the past 25 years, Fukutake has united some of the world’s leading architects and the work of artists past and present to transform the tiny Japanese islands from dying industrial wastelands and dumping grounds into cultural meccas of contemporary design. Names range from Ryue Nishizawa to Tadao Ando, Claude Monet to Jackson Pollock, Yayoi Kusama to Walter De Maria, as well as James Turrell, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Andy Warhol and Gerhard Richter.

Their work is scattered like beautiful debris over the landscape, but what elevates the islands beyond the white-walled and introverted urban museum is the interaction of art, architecture and landscape. For Fukutake, these are essential ingredients in order to “wake up the viewer”. And wake up we did.