Day 14: Naoshima > Hiroshima
We saw, and ate, and drank, a lot of impressive things during our one night stay at the beautiful Benesse House art site on Naoshima island.
Dotted with installations by big names from Japan and beyond, the island is a work of art in itself. As is the Benesse site, a contemporary art museum plus two smaller collections, hotel accommodation and restaurants. One of the many highlights of our visit was a ten course Japanese dinner underneath a set of Warhol’s Flowers. Unreal.
Our room had a balcony with an ocean view, within earshot of George Rickey’s Peristyle V (1963–95), a kinetic sculpture I nicknamed “Freddy’s Fingers” (after A Nightmare on Elm Street). Leave the door open, and you were woken by the metal shards’ eerie screeches.
But the work that really stayed with me was Yukinori Yanagi’s The Forbidden Box (1995). A lead case etched with “Little Boy”, the name of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, lies open on the ground. Above it hang two translucent fabric screens, each printed with the image of the 15 kiloton blast. On the frontmost sheet, an excerpt from the Japanese constitution extols the need to reach peaceful resolutions of international incident. Behind it, the text of the US constitution vows to never again resort to violence or war.
Subtle it is not, but as we speed towards the city devastated by that device, it’s a jarring reminder. I wonder how many other tourists have made this exact same journey, having first gazed upon The Forbidden Box, and whether it haunted them too.
