An exhibition? A Concert? Who knows what I will want to share but whatever it is, I hope you will share it with me.
LOST IN TRANSLATION - Chapter 3 Naoshima
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Onto Naoshima…In my mind today I am somewhat confused by what transport we took. The men had taken me in hand and I followed them both meekly! (More or less). Sometimes we had a reserved place in a train but a lot of the time we didn’t. This is perhaps why I am confused. I’m certain that we didn’t take the Bullet train to Naoshima ( Naoshima is an island) but when I saw it for the first time, I was taken aback. A huge streamlined Duck. Pristine clean inside and out not to mention how comfortable and fast it was. The Shinkansen as it is known also known is a network of high speed railway lines in Japan.
The maximum operating speed is 320 km/h (200 mph). Hate to say it, but it’s more comfortable than our TGV and certainly more spacious.
In simple terms, I would describe Naoshima as an Art island It is known for its many contemporary art museums. In all, there are five major sites on the island - and although we arrived on a Sunday mid-afternoon we were to discover that most of them were closed! Fortunately a receptionist informed us that if we were fast, we would be able to see the Lee Ufan museum which closed at 5pm. Without asking us, she was suddenly outside the hotel and drove us to the museum. At least then we could see it. What is impressive about this site are huge sculptures inside and out and nothing else. Space is used to it’s utmost.
Lee Ufan (Korean) was one of the leading figures of the Mono-ha school (School of
Things), a contemporary art movement emerging in the late 1960s. Lee's
works in the museum include two-dimensional paintings featuring
repetitive brushstrokes laid down with the rhythm of quiet breathing and
sculptures that organically combine stones and steel plates, in which
the artist's interventions are reduced to the bare minimum.
Bare minimum is right. A very strange collection but once again there was silence, until Jerome started to sing....
A rather doubtful sky greeted us
Lee Ufan Museum
A strange emptiness
I think what made the silence even more peaceful was listening to Jerome sing ...
Relatum-Point : Lee Ulfan - 2010
Walking out
Relatum-A Signal - Lee Ufan 2010
This was leading to the museum the men had enjoyed to much during their first visit...but no way could be get to the entrance. Firmly closed.
Coming back in the evening to the hotel, the skies were "out of this world".
The electricity cables again...
A far away island
Seconds later
A sculpture we would see in day light too
Ship yard Works Bow with Hole - 1990 Shinro Ohtake
We were staying at the Benessee House Hotel which had it’s own art gallery. No pictures please while we were there. The collection was enormous...Not taking photos didn’t matter to me. Well just two...
The downstairs gallery
Frank Stella
at the reception before going to our rooms...I think it's Diego sur Stèle - Anthony GORMLEY
Benessee Hotel
What did matter was the outside gardens with works of Niki de Saint-Phalle,
Niki de S.P. " Le Banc" 1989
"Conversation "1991
N. De S. "Conversation" 1991
N.de Saint Phalle . Elephant - 1991
"Cat" 1991
and an artist I love, Karel Appel. I had never seen a sculpture of his before.
Frog and Cat - Karel APpel 1990
Kusama’s famous pumpkin which could be seen from so many spots on the island.
Yayoi Kusama "Pumpkin" 1994
Would you believe a French meal in the evening? (There was no space in the Japanese restaurant. This was the only time we ate European food. (I might add that it was excellent)
A beautiful breakfast in the morning and then we had time to stroll around the Benessee grounds and see the sculptures.
Seen/Unseen Known/Unknown Granite mahogany, gold leaf, Cement...Walter De Maris : 2000
For the three here, I can't find the titles...
Kazo Katase "Drink a cup of tea" 1987-94
This was practically a return to a European atmosphere. Once again though, the hotel staff spoke little English. Did that matter this time around? Not really as we were in a world of installations that were close to home.
The trains and their precise timetables are like an extension of this collection. Everything is so sharply defined. No wabi-sabi here. Brancusi and Le Corbusier would feel very much at home.
Message de Jerome : Merci pour ton blog qui me fait revivre ce beau voyage (et me permet dans certains cas de meiux comprendre certaines des choses que nous avons observées). Un commentaire cependant sur ton chapitre 3 : tu as complétement zappé nos visites du matin sur Naoshima (et notamment l'escalier de verre, la maison folle, les chronos dans l'eau et la piece noire). Un oubli ou un choix editorial ?
Over the years, I have gone on discovering Wifredo Lam. He has been mentioned in different Blog chapters but always within permanent collections. I have to admit today that in the early years, I took one of his paintings for a Picasso….and seeing certain paintings of his today, it didn’t really surprise me. Especially as I learnt that he knew Picasso…This though was a retrospective of his work at the Beaubourg. Wifredo Lam (1902-1982) was a precursor of a cross-cultural style of painting, infusing Western modernism with African and Caribbean symbolism. He must have been one of the very rare artists who was in contact with all the movements of his time …and all those that I follow. Cubism, surrealism, CoBrA…but he never lost sight of the world around him and took on the struggle to paint the drama of his own country, Cuba. The above photo plunges us at once into the exhibition. Was he an attractive man? I think there are later photos which make him look less brutal….but in my book,
After 25 years as a museum, it was time to renovate the Picasso site. The « Hotel » as we call it, has quite a history. It is probably, as Bruno Foucart wrote in 1985, (he is an art historian of 19th century architecture) “the grandest, most extraordinary, if not the most extravagant, of the Parisian houses of the 17th century”. Hotel Salé The Main stair case Another coming down "Picasso" would have liked these lights The building has seen many occupants come and go over the centuries. However, paradoxically, before the place was entrusted to the museum, it was rarely “inhabited”, but instead leased out to various private individuals, prestigious hosts and institutions. And so it became the Picasso museum. The renovations began in 2009 and quite obviously went well over budget and should have opened before the holidays started this year. The political arguments too had to be contended with not to mention the changes in Directors and the big question bei
The exhibition season is very full between January and the French holiday period. I make less and less effort to go and see the « block-busters » and there are some museums which are not easy to get around. The Jacquemart André is one of them. The rooms are so small and when a couple of groups move in, it is virtually impossible to see a picture or move at all. Still I was interested to go and see the Alicia Koplowitz collection. Now I come to think of it, there have been quite a few private collections shown to the public since the end of last year. Naturally I knew nothing about this woman. Alicia Koplowitz is very well known in her home country, Spain. Thanks to her company, the Capital Omega Group a comprehensive financial services company , she has become an important collect er Alicia is is a Spanish business magnate. When her father died, she and her sister inherited Construcciones y Contratas, S.A. (CYCSA), a company founded by her father. She sold her part of the comp
Commentaires
Un commentaire cependant sur ton chapitre 3 : tu as complétement zappé nos visites du matin sur Naoshima (et notamment l'escalier de verre, la maison folle, les chronos dans l'eau et la piece noire). Un oubli ou un choix editorial ?