About Naoshima New Museum of Art

For me, the Naoshima New Museum of Art is the culmination of what I have done for over the past thirty five years. For this initiative we will place our focus on Asian art. The works in the collection of Benesse Art Site Naoshima will hence extend from the West to Asia, including Japan. It is my hope that the new museum will symbolize a bright future by contributing to the formation of happy communities.

Once completed, buildings and works of art tend to be seen as being in their final states. Isn’t it possible, however, to create something new, such as "movements" or "circulation" even after the “completion”? For Benesse Art Site Naoshima, Naoshima New Museum of Art will play a role as a platform to promote "movements" as such. With the museum as a base, I hope we will generate new "movements" through conversations and collaborations not only between artists and architects but across a wide spectrum of encounters and exchanges including those between islanders and visitors.

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. 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.

Benesse Art Site Naoshima launched in the late 1980s on the eponymous island in Japan to engage with society and the times, and offer new values through the pursuit of artistic activities on remote islands different from those available in cities, and with the aspiration of building a community in cooperation with locals, and shaping a symbiosis of nature, architecture, and art.

Located in a village and the first to be named after the island, Naoshima New Museum of Art is the latest addition to the nexus of museums and art facilities developed by Benesse Art Site Naoshima on the islands of Naoshima, Teshima, and Inujima. This both encapsulates the idea of creating an art museum that contributes to regional revitalization in association with locals on the island where Benesse Art Site Naoshima's activities originally began, and endeavors to further deepen that symbiosis of art, architecture, nature, and community. With a focus on exhibiting and introducing contemporary art from Asia, including Japan, Naoshima New Museum of Art's wide-ranging projects encompass changing exhibitions and public programs. As a node for the nexus of museums that Benesse Art Site Naoshima's thirty-year project has yielded, this new venue aspires to disseminate diverse perspectives and messages about contemporary society, attract both islanders and people from around the world, and inspire fresh encounters, exchange, insights, imagination, and creativity.

The “new” in the name not only emphasizes a spirit of critical inquiry into different perspectives, the zeitgeist, and society through art and other broader activities, but also reaffirms the creation of new values through Benesse Art Site Naoshima's long-term efforts, and incorporates a desire to look ahead to a future century hence and continue to question and challenge existing values through art.

Naoshima New Museum of Art joins Benesse Art Site Naoshima at a time of political, economic, and social transition, and it is our hope that the museum will create highly diverse viewing experiences through works of art and collaborations with Asian artists astutely examining the circumstances and era in which we live, and will encourage reflection on “benesse=well-being” through perspectives that are local, Asian, and global.