The Fukutake Foundation has announced the opening of the Naoshima New Museum of Art, located on a hilltop near the Honmura district of Naoshima, Japan.

Designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, the Benesse Art Site Naoshima will be Ando's tenth architectural work, the Naoshima New Museum of Art. 

It will display and expand a collection of significant pieces, including recently commissioned, location-specific pieces created by Asian artists and groups. The pieces will be shown in the café area, outdoor grounds, and four gallery spaces in a three-story building with a ground floor and two basement levels. 

The museum is set to be opened to the public in spring 2025.

The inaugural exhibition will feature works by eleven artists and groups, including Aida Makoto, Martha Atienza, Cai Guo-Qiang, Chim↑Pom from Smappa!Group, Heri Dono, indieguerillas, Takashi Murakami, N. S. Harsha, Sanitas Pradittasnee, Do Ho Suh, and Pannaphan Yodmanee.

Both permanent and sporadically changing exhibits will be on display at the museum. This strategy seeks to create dynamic yet leisurely artistic engagement, giving visitors something new every time they visit, in contrast to previous Benesse Art Site Naoshima facilities that were more focused on permanent exhibitions. 

The museum will hold a variety of public events, including talks and workshops, in addition to special exhibitions. These events will be intended to convey a variety of viewpoints, expressions, and complex messages about modern society. 

It is anticipated that this changing experience will make it a destination that draws tourists time and time again, fostering meaningful interactions and relationships with people from both on and off the island.

This constellation of locations will provide more integrated art encounters that are profoundly resonant with the local communities and environment as the new museum connects with the island's existing art facilities. 

It seeks to further explore what it means to be a museum deeply rooted in the local community's spirit as the first museum to be named Naoshima, fostering an even greater harmony between art, architecture, nature, and everyday life on the island.

Benesse Art Site Naoshima has owned and operated a number of facilities in Naoshima since the 1990s. Tadao Ando's Benesse House Museum (1992), Chichu Art Museum (2004), and Lee Ufan Museum (2010) are situated in the southern portion of the island that faces the Seto Inland Sea.

The Honmura district, which serves as the hub for the town's administration and residents, is home to the Ando Museum (2010) and the Art House Project - which has been going on since 1998, which transforms abandoned old homes into art installations.

Cafe

Tadao Ando, who has been involved in museum projects for Naoshima for more than thirty years, starting with the Benesse House Museum, which opened in 1992, is the architect behind the Naoshima New Museum of Art. 

With two floors below ground level and one on the ground floor, the new three-story museum features a large roof whose slope complements the hilltop location. 

Straight from the ground floor to the underground floors is a staircase that lets in natural light from a skylight. There are four galleries on either side of the staircase. On the northern portion of the ground floor is a café that provides a picturesque view of the island of Teshima and the passing fishing boats, a typical sight of the Seto Inland Sea.

In order to blend in with the surrounding landscape of the Honmura area, the museum's exterior will have stacked pebble walls and black plaster that resembles burned cedar walls. The entrance's approach and architecture are intended to link visitors' experiences with the history and daily lives of the people of Naoshima.

"I believe it was, more than anything, Mr. Fukutake Soichiro's enthusiasm and passion that led Naoshima to flourish as a world-famous island of art and culture," said Tadao Ando. 

"While there are a number of wonderful art museums around the world, I have not seen many that demonstrate the personal senses of an individual as vividly as the one in Naoshima does."

"Working on this new museum project, more than thirty-five years since I first met Mr. Fukutake, I am drawn more than ever to follow his liberal spirit and strong will now and going forward into the future," Ando added.

Atrium

"The exhibition to commemorate the inaugural year of the museum is comprised of works of art that Soichiro Fukutake, the Honorary Chairman of the Fukutake Foundation, selected to express messages he wishes to be communicated in our present time and onward to the future," said Miki Akiko, Director of the Fukutake Foundation.

"On view are a diverse range of works, from representative works to new and site-specific works, created by artists who have been involved with Benesse Art Site Naoshima from its beginning, those who have been acquainted with us since the venue of the Benesse Prize moved from Venice to Asia, and those who we encountered during our research trips in recent years. In presenting such works of art, the exhibition raises questions about our times, society, environment, and our way of living," Akiko added.

At Benesse House Museum and Chichu Art Museum, Benesse Art Site Naoshima has mostly gathered and displayed the creations of well-known contemporary Western artists. 

Lobby

By moving the Benesse Prize, which was created in 1995 to support artistic endeavors that prompt us to consider well-being, from the Venice Biennale to the Singapore Biennale, it has recently increased its focus and interest in contemporary Asian art. 

Building on this, the new museum will gather and display artwork from Asia, including Japan, that reflects the distinct and critical viewpoints of individual artists on our times, society, and the environment.

Tadao Ando was born in 1941 in Osaka. He founded Tadao Ando Architects & Associates in 1969. Ando is a self-taught architect. He was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1995.

Among the notable pieces are the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, Church of the Light in Osaka, built in 1989, Chichu Art Museum in Naoshima, built in 2004, and Nakanoshima Children’s Book Forest in Osaka, built in 2020.

Ando also completed the He Art Museum (HEM) in Guangdong, China. 

Project facts

Project name: Naoshima New Museum of Art
Founder: Fukutake Foundation (Naoshima, Kagawa: Chairman, Fukutake Hideaki / Honorary Chairman, Fukutake Soichiro)
Design: Tadao Ando Architect & Associates
Architecture: 3 stories (1 above ground and 2 underground), with a café (144 sq m)
Galleries: (1) 373 sq m, (2) 300 sq m, (3) 320 sq m, (4) 494 sq m (rounded numbers)
Site Area: 6,017.67 sq m
Total Floor Area: 3,176.43 sq m
Location: 3299-73, Naoshima, Kagawa, Japan
Director: Miki Akiko

All renderings: Naoshima New Museum of Art ©︎ Tadao Ando Architect & Associates.

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