Looking for Art in All the Wrong Places

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Today was not a very promising day, as far as the weather. That’s unfortunate, because today was the day I had planned to go to Naoshima - The Art Island. We couldn’t go yesterday because of that thing about museums being closed on Mondays. Today was really the only option.

The weather matters because:

1. We have to take a ferry there. The logistics are complicated. The ONLY return ferries to Takamatsu are at 15:20, 17:00 and 19:45.
2. We will have to walk outdoors quite a bit. There are no taxis on the island, I am told. The only ways to get around are
• walking - I’m not sure of the distance - I don’t know if there is a sidewalk, I think there is a shortcut but I only found one reference to it online
• renting a bicycle and riding on a (narrow?) road shared with cars and buses - this is not something we are likely to do
• or taking the “town bus” (1 to 3 buses per hour) to a particular bus stop, then taking a shuttle bus (schedule unknown) to one of the main museums, then walking to the other two main museums. In other words, a lot of time outdoors waiting at bus stops and walking. It’s unclear whether the demand for the bus is likely to exceed capacity.
3. There are a number of outdoor installations to see on Naoshima, as well as the architecture of the museums.
4. You need to book tickets for the Chichu Museum and the Kinza Art House at least one day in advance, and the weather report was not hopeful a day in advance.

Uh huh. It was all pretty complicated, and Tuesday morning’s weather report looked like rain. We decided our vacation should be more fun and less stress, so the best thing to do was just stay in Takamatsu.

I had been wanting to visit Naoshima for years, but I was surprisingly relieved not to have to go on a rainy day. I also learned that it is probably easier to go to Naoshima from Okayama. The ferries are more frequent and they dock at the other side of the island, much closer to the museums.

Takamatsu Art Museum

Instead of going to three or four museums on Naoshima, plus the outdoor installations, we decided to go to the Takamatsu Art Museum, just a few blocks from our hotel.

The ground floor held items from the permanent collection, and it turned out to be free to see this. We were not permitted to photograph most of the exhibits.

I quite liked this large metal vessel

This one was so interesting, especially with the blue crocheted rectangle on it. I was tempted to pick it up and look at it more closely, but I doubt that would have been allowed. It really looked like it had been left there by a toddler, but I’m fairly sure it was part of the artwork.

The presentation of the pieces on display was excellent. Empty space was used very well to highlight a small number of pieces and avoid clutter (and crowding by visitors to the museum).

One almost empty room featured a film, projected on a wall. It was a fascinating study of light and shadow and the progress of a painting by an unseen artist. The action was sped up so you could watch a few days in 5 or 10 minutes. It was hard to walk away from it even though nothing much happened. 

The second floor held a special exhibit, which we paid to see, The special exhibit was called GIANT ROBOTS The Core of Japanese Mecha Anime. This isn’t really my thing, but I thought I might like it if I learned more about it, and I definitely wanted to see the Giant Robots.

It turned out that the exhibit was more about the concept of Giant Robots, than about actual robots. In fact, there were no robots there at all. Instead, the exhibit was a rather boring series of posters explaining the history of Giant rRobots. The illustrations were not particularly enlightening to me.

However, I was quite surprised to notice that Ken was a) familiar with many of the giant robots, and b) mildly into it. I also began to notice what an uber-male environment this exhibit was. Almost all the visitors were male. Almost all of the Giant Robots were male, and the robots seemed to have a lot of big muscles and testosterone. One hundred percent of the artists and creative people featured in the stories of the various Giant Robots were male.

This is an attempt to show the scale of a Giant Robot by drawing it on the floor of one of the galleries.

I married a (very small) Giant Robot

Long story short: I have no further interest in Giant Robots. Unless I could see a real one. There used to be a full-size Gundam statue in Yokohama, but it’s my understanding that it was removed quite recently. It was outdoors on a dock, I think. I might have tried to see it when we go to Yokohama later this month, but I guess I “missed the boat.”

Mini is much cuter than Giant. I spotted this lovely on the way back to the hotel. I think I’m in love.

Today’s fabric is Cool Colorful Robots for Girls, by littlesmilemakers for Spoonflower.