Chichu Art Museum, Japan

Description

Chichu Art Museum
Chichu Art Museum was constructed in 2004 as a site rethinking the relationship between nature and people. The museum was built mostly underground to avoid affecting the beautiful natural scenery of the Seto Inland sea. Artworks by Claude Monet, James Turrell, and Walter De Maria are on permanent display in this building designed by Tadao Ando. Despite being primarily subterranean, the museum lets in an abundance of natural light that changes the appearance of the artworks and the ambience of the space itself with the passage of time, throughout the day and all along the four seasons of the year.Taking form as the artists and architect bounced ideas off each other, the museum in its entirety can be seen as a very large site-specific artwork.






Claude Monet

Five paintings from the Water Lilies series produced by the great Impressionist painter Claude Monet in his later years can be enjoyed under natural light in the museum. The size of the room, its design and the materials used all were carefully selected to unite the Monet paintings with the surrounding space.

Walter De Maria

The entire art space, containing a sphere 2.2 meters in diameter and 27 gilded wooden geometric forms, was created under the direction of Walter De Maria as an artwork. Viewers experience this space under the natural light coming in from the ceiling, producing dramatic changes in the room’s illumination depending on the hour.

Chichu Garden

Chichu Garden consists of nearly 200 kinds of flowers and trees similar to those planted at Giverny by Claude Monet, whose work is in the museum collection. Here, visitors can enjoy signs of the seasons throughout the year in flora ranging from the water lilies that Monet painted in his later years to willows, irises, and other plants. The garden affords a tangible experience of the nature Monet sought to capture in his paintings.






Chichu Cafe

The museum shop attached to the Chichu Art Museum. The Chichu store sells merchandise that bring visitors closer to the museum, including books published by the museum itself, photography collections, and original goods.

Benesse House

Opened at Benesse Art Site Naoshima in 1992, Benesse House is both a museum and a hotel, incorporating guest rooms and space for display of contemporary art. Benesse House offers guests opportunities to get close to great art and spend a uniquely rewarding time in dialogue with the works and with themselves.The leisurely passage of time, conversations with people you meet, beautiful scenery, silence at night… all of these make up the fabric of day-to-day life on these islands in the Seto Inland Sea, and to experience these is to experience the islands themselves. Staying overnight will greatly enrich your trip and deepen your appreciation of Benesse Art Site Naoshima.

Visit the full website for complete details,www.benesse-artsite.jp/en/art/chichu.html