Nippon Zen

After arriving, we make a first stop near the airport in Chiba before heading to central Tokyo. The Kawamura Memorial Museum houses a Rothko Room where seven of the Seagram Murals are on display. A highlight we can’t pass up. For those looking for another excursion after freshening up at the hotel, we take you to Ginza, where the city’s lights never seem to dim.

In Tokyo, the focus is on a wide range of subjects; ancient temple treasures at architect Yoshi Taniguchi’s Hall of Horyuji Treasures, Hokusai’s 19th century ukiyo-e at architect Kazuyo Sejima’s Sumida Hokusai Museum, the art collection assembled by 20th century collector Kojiro Matsukata at Le Corbusier’s Museum of Western Art and contemporary art by Yayoi Kusama at the museum that gives a deeper insight into the famous artist’s creative evolution.

At the Mori Art Museum, the ‘Sou Fujimoto’ expo has already been announced, for the other museums with temporary exhibitions, the final programme is still pending. Among others, 21_21 Design Sight founded by Issey Miyake is on our radar, known for its design-related exhibitions.

Departing clockwise, we take the shinkansen along the North Pacific coast. Here we make a stop in Odawara to visit Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Enoura Observatory, where warm autumn colours await us in the specially designed garden. Apart from being an art photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto is also an architect and created a place of reflection dedicated to art, nature and architecture at this unique location.
After lunch, we follow the coastline of Sagami Bay to the Yokosuka Museum of Art by Pritzker Prize winner Riken Yamamoto. In the evening, we travel on to Nagoya.

The Aichi Triennale has been organised every three years since 2010 and this edition’s theme revolves around a future based on geological time perspectives, as opposed to national and territorial perspectives to highlight the contemporary gap between humans and the environment. The curator of this edition is Hoor Al Qasimi (UAE). She is the founder of Sharjah Art Foundation and a leading voice in the art world in Asia and Africa. Artists already participating in the Aichi Triennale are Dala Nasser (LIB), Ogawa Machiko (JP), Oki Junko (JP) and Adrian Villar Rojas (AR).

Aichi prefecture is known as one of the two production centres of Japanese ceramics since the 13th century. Seto City, where the Aichi Triennale takes place, is the ceramics capital of Japan.

We set aside half a day to visit the Toyota Municipal Musem of Art, a masterpiece by architect Yoshio Taniguchi. Designed by Peter Walker (US), the garden houses the Dojien Teahouse and the Takahasi Setsuro Gallery with a permanent exhibition of Takahasi Setsuro’s Japanese lacquer art collection.

Japan’s historic capital continues to capture the imagination. The ancient temples, surrounded by their beautiful gardens and built in refined materials, are remarkably well preserved thanks to meticulous maintenance by the Japanese. We will visit Ryoan-ji with its famous stone garden and Kinkaku-ji with its golden pavilion, as well as the lesser-known Garden of Fine Arts by architect Tadao Ando.

In Kyoto, we stay at the Prince Kyoto Takaragaike hotel, designed by architect Togo Murano. The circular hotel is beautifully integrated into its surroundings, Takaragaike Park in northern Kyoto.

From Seto City, across Kyoto, we travel to the Setouchi Triennale on the Seto Inland Sea. The festival has been around since 2010, but the first creative shoots on the islands were planted in the 1990s under the patronage of the Fukutake family.

We first take the ferry to the smallest art island, Inujima. Only a vest pocket big, it constitutes the most intimate experience of all the islands. Hiroshi Sambuichi’s Inujima Seirensho Museum, with artworks by Yukinori Yanagi, recounts the scars left by industrialisation and modernisation. Kazuyo Seijima’s light-hearted interventions within the Inujima Art House Projects are a necessary counterpart.

A private ferry takes us from Inujima to Teshima. After picking up our electric bikes, we have lunch at Atelier Ryo Abe’s Shima Kitchen. The main project we see on Teshima is Ryue Nishizawa’s Teshima Art Museum. Again, the entire building is dedicated to the work of one artist, Rei Naito. It is a spiritual experience to end the day.

For anyone in need of a blow-out day, we stay on Naoshima all day today and enjoy the various Art House Projects by Sou Fujimoto, SANAA, Ryue Nishizawa and Hiroshi Sambuichi, the Chichu Art Museum by Tadao Ando and the Time Corridors by Hiroshi Sugimoto at our own pace. The island has so much to offer that we provide you with an electric bike and a handy map.

After saying goodbye to the art islands, we cross over to northern art, on the Sea of Japan. For here lies Kanazawa, sister city of Ghent and since 2004 the site of SANAA’s 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. The architectural design breaks through the traditional layout of a museum by designing the various exhibition spaces as separate volumes and allowing the connections between them to flow freely. Visitors are challenged to explore through the fordable circular building.

The writer and scholar D.T. Suzuki was an authority on Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism, and was instrumental in spreading interest in it to the West. We visit his museum, where architect Yoshio Taniguchi has sublimely materialised the principles of Zen in space, time and movement.

On the way back to Tokyo, we get off at Karuizawa, known as a holiday resort for Tokyo residents. A bus takes us to Ryue Nishizawa’s Hiroshi Senju Museum, where a magnificent synergy has been created between art, architecture and nature.