Luminous Wall OCAT Walk Namba

 

Not long after arriving in Japan, and having seen the massive complex of underground shopping malls and passageways in Osaka, I entertained the notion that maybe the Japanese were becoming troglodytes.

Of course they do offer protection from the traffic and inclement weather, including the dangerous sunshine that the Japanese female lives in terror of....

As a visitor, I hate them, not least because I get lost a lot and find the direction signage confusing...

However, in OCAT WALK, an underground passage that connects Namba Station with OCAT, I found this delightful art installation cum lighting system.

An undulating wall of fairly standard glass bricks with subtle lighting behind and miniature artwork in some bricks.

I have been unable to learn anything about it, who designed it, etc.

This is the first in a series of posts on an afternoon I spent in Namba.

I spend very little time in cities. I find them strange, and if I can I treat my visits to them as if visiting a theme park like disneyland

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Anger From the Bottom by Beat Takeshi

As I was climbing up towards the first mountain temple on the Shodoshima Pilgrimage I spied ahead of me what I guessed was a kind of shrine. When I got to it I was faced with a stainless steel figure with big red eyes and an axe embedded in its skull.

Anger From the Bottom is a sculpture by "Beat" Takeshi Kitano and Keniji Yanobe, originally produced for the Setouchi Art Triennale that takes place in the area. It is one of the artworks that is now permanently on display.

Originally there was no roof over it, and the statue was below ground only rising up for 5 minutes every hour. Takeshi is famous in japan as a comedian and TV presenter, but internationally he is known as a film-maker. The unexpected and surprising is a large part of why I enjoy my walks around rural Japan......

Ikuchijima Island-Wide Art Museum

On the second day of my walk from Honshu to Shikoku along the Shimanami Kaido I left Kosanji Temple and started walking down the west coast of the island. On the beach looking westward was this statue, a Jizo I think.

A little further, set on a rock in the water was an unusual modern sculpture, "Wings of the Waves" by Susumu Shingu, one of 17 modern sculptures located around the island in what they call the Island-Wide Art Museum

Sunset Beach runs down the coast almost to the Tatara Bridge which crosses over to Omishima.

At the southern end of the beach another couple of sculptures. In the foreground is "Calm Time-Red form / Inclination by Keiji Uematsu, and in the background "Clairvoyance" by Shin Matsunaga.

Art can take many forms, but this old bus is not part of the Island-Wide Art Museum.

Purchase a selection of ema from GoodsFromJapan

Nagi Moca "Earth"

Nagi is a very small town in the mountains of Okayama Prefecture that is home to a very unusual Museum Of Contemporary Art.

 

The museum was designed by renowned architect Arata Isozaki and is unusual in that the architecture was designed in collaboration with a group of artists to display works that could not be displayed in a normal museum context.

 

The three sections of the museum are named Earth, Sun, and Moon, though these names have nothing to do with the art within but rather the orientation of the buildings. The first one encountered is "Earth", and it was my favorite.

 

The artwork "Utsurohi" is by artists Aiko Miyawaki. Steel rods are planted in beds of stones. Some of the stones are under water, some not. Some of the artwork is outside, some not. The combination of textures, steel, stone, water, and concrete combining with light, shadow and reflection gives an ever changing display as you walk around it and as the sun and clouds move across the sky.

 

Nagi is a little off the beaten track but is well worth a visit. We were there on an overcast day and I hope to go back on a day with better weather and light.

 

Btw, Aiko Miyawaki was Arata Isozaki's wife when the museum was designed.

The other two building/artworks that make up the museum are Sun, and Moon.