Benesse House is a glorious place to stay. The building overlooks the misty waters of the Inland Sea. It is designed, as many of the island’s art facilities are, by the starchitect Tadao Ando. Here there are two restaurants, both of which must be booked in advance – dining in the upper one, which is located inside the hotel’s art museum, is rather a magical experience; it’s not often one can spend the after-hours in a museum contemplating works by Nauman, Hockney, Giacometti, while feasting on Wagyu beef and lightly battered tempura prawns. The rooms are simple and elegant, and mine has a photograph of a water tower by the conceptual art duo Bernd and Hilla Becher.
Naoshima’s best museum, though, is the Chichu (also make sure to book or risk standing in a grim-looking queue). A friend who works in the arts told me, with tears in her eyes, that it was perhaps the greatest museum she’s ever visited: a concrete carapace beautifully jigsawed into a hilltop by Ando. It features a stunning room of Monets and a portal-esque Turrell into which guests are encouraged to wander.
The next morning, I wake with the rising sun in order to hurry around the houses in the fishing town of Honmura – where wooden huts have been converted into pieces of art. One can only imagine what the almost comically stone-faced locals make of all the art world characters who come here. I spy another Turrell: this one a dark room in which shapes of light gradually appear, which will be familiar to lovers of the artist’s ‘St Elmo’s Breath’ installation at Houghton Hall. Today there is no wind and the Cafe Konichiwa, a tiny place that appears to have fallen out of the Seventies, is open. I feast on waffles and ice cream, before speeding across the morning water in a ferry towards the next island of Teshima. Its grey peaks rise above cushions of mist.
The island is sleepy, quiet and filled with Benesse-sponsored art. I rent a semi-electric bicycle and rocket towards the hills, until I reach the Teshima Art Museum. It isn’t really a museum, rather it’s a single artwork called ‘Matrix’ by Rei Naito that was built by the architect Ryue Nishizawa: a large concrete shell whose roof is open to the sky. Inside, beads of water trickle through the porous floor, forming rivulets that run across the concrete to depressions in the ground. So powerful is Naito’s artwork that a handful of visitors sit cross-legged watching the rivulets, with fat tears rolling down their faces.
AloJapan.com