One day in / Between long weekends

Okay, first things first... A big 'HELLO' to anyone out there!

Next... I went to Naoshima on the holiday Monday (yesterday). I bet you were starting to wonder if my Lady and I were going to go. After all, it did rain yesterday, accompanied by a solid thunderstorm - NICE! Some of the lightning strikes were within 1KM!

ASIDE: I'm currently listening to my Lou Reed station on Last.fm and it's awesome... he is doing spoken word of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" with musical accompaniment. Since nobody knows me well out there, I should tell you that Lou Reed is one of my gods. But I won't get too far into it. Check him out sometime, please.

Okay, back to the Naoshima trip. We walked on to the ferry and as soon as we arrived on the island, we took a bus to the Chichu Art Museum 地中美術館. I'll say two things very honestly: too expensive (2,000￥ per person!) and a disturbing experience. We were lectured as a group first when we arrived and told all the rules. No pictures. We were told at points inside to be quiet when we were talking at a normal level. It was mostly dark, like a dungeon. There are only a few things to actually see inside other than the Ando Tadao space itself (more on Ando here and here).

Now, the building is intriguing but we both feel it does not serve the purpose of being an art museum and we hated that we weren't allowed to just freely tour the place but, instead, had to be told at certain points (by people dressed in clinical, white lab coat outfits that make you feel like you're visiting an insane asylum or some dungeon where strange experiments are being undertaken), where we could go and how we should behave. It was worse than visiting a functional church or cathedral. For both of us, the experience of viewing and taking in art should be relaxed, pleasurable, free, etc., etc. Long story short, two thumbs down for Chichu. But, don't take our word for it, go see for yourself, if you dare, and let me know what you think.

After that, we walked down the hill (yes, we walked instead of waiting for the bus... the walk took about 10 mins!) and went to the Benesse House. It could only get better from there and it did. Yeah! The permanent collection was interesting and this Ando building was much more to our liking. The giant windows/doors that open out or slide open were very cool and the natural light penetrating the space really worked. Don't get me wrong - I don't dislike his use of unfinished concrete (although it's a bit too stripped down for my taste to always stick to that one medium), nor do I have anything against his control of space (to a certain degree the theory behind it suits me fine)... but I really think he went too far with ChiChu. Or... the people operating the museum made a mistake in planning this completely controlled, restricted 'tour' to complement the somewhat claustrophobic feeling generated by the architecture itself. To be honest, when I saw the admission price for Chichu, I immediately knew they had to be overcompensating for some great lack. And we discovered what that lack was... sadly.

I have to bring this post to a close. We enjoyed a beer at the cafe in the Benesse House. We walked around the property and down to the sea. Splashed around in the water a bit. Ate some おにぎり (video here) that we had brought with us (aren't we smart! it's a good thing, too, since the Chichu Museum robbed us of 4,000￥!). And, eventually, we made our way to the bus stop to head back to the ferry. And, then, after a hot, hot day (about 34C maybe) and lots of sunshine, it clouded over, started to rain hard, and slammed us with a killer thunderstorm. Perfect ending to an interesting day. We weren't long on the island, so we didn't get to see the other 'Art Houses'. Maybe another time.

Some interesting photos we took will be available soon. The memory stick won't upload properly to the computer and we have to wait for the cord to arrive to hook the camera up directly. I will put them on Google's Picasa Web Albums or on flickr or something soon.

Oh yes! The Chichu garden, which most of the people seemed to just walk right past on the way to the main museum building, was the most beautiful thing on the site. My next two favorites, in this order, were the cafe (beautiful natural light coming in, complementing the big space and wood floors) and the bathrooms (!).

I'm out...

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Played while I posted: The Strokes - Hard to Explain
via FoxyTunes