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# Naoshima Notes
- URL: https://www.jamesreeves.co/naoshima-notes/
- Published: 2025-03-03T16:11:25.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-22T18:13:21.000Z
- Description: I believe the function of art is to create a situation where language falls apart.
- Author: James A. Reeves
- Tags: Notebook

You have to really want to get to the island of Naoshima. A bullet train from Tokyo across five hundred miles in two hours. A sluggish taxi ride along a coastal road with five thousand stoplights. A ferry among the islands with muted freighters on the horizon, cutting through the fog.

Squid ink curry is my new favorite food.

Eliminating photography at museums is a righteous policy, although I was initially vexed by the need to take pictures to prove I had witnessed a piece of art. Nowadays, taking a picture is how we *see* an image or event, an amplified echo of Susan Sontag’s declaration in ’77 that “today everything exists to end in a photograph.” But this phantom twitch quickly faded as we moved through [Tadao Ando](https://benesse-artsite.jp/en/art/chichu.html?ref=jamesreeves.co)’s severe concrete halls, and I was delighted to discover I was experiencing art with strangers in a way I hadn’t since the early 2000s. We weren’t ducking out of the way of each other’s shots. We lingered longer. Even the roomful of Monets held my interest.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/85/bb/85bbc222-eb2e-4bcf-8b92-f241768e9260/content/images/2025/03/sustainability-13-06653-g007.jpeg)

Walter de Maria, **Time/Timeless/No Time* (2004). Chichu Art Museum, Japan. Image: Mitsuo Matsuoka

But how to deal with a gigantic marble orb on a concrete staircase surrounded by dozens of golden three-pronged statues? To start, we moved around it slowly. We hunted for patterns and imagined the rituals that might occur in such a place. We lingered long enough that its strangeness became familiar, and soon we were dealing with it on its terms.

I enjoyed the ritual of removing my shoes before entering a gallery. It was somehow both formal and intimate. And quieter.

James Turrell's room of hyper-blue light gnawed at my peripheral vision until I was on the edge of a big-budget hallucination, unsure if he meant for me to be seeing what I was seeing.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/85/bb/85bbc222-eb2e-4bcf-8b92-f241768e9260/content/images/2025/03/IMG_0472.jpg)

The town of Hommura on the island Naoshima

We walked through a tiny silent town that smelled like a sauna. The wooden buildings were elegantly charred, and a sign above a shuttered door said *Fortune Favors a Merry Home*.

Fifty-two degrees is the threshold between a light and a heavy sweater.

For the first two nights, we dined next to a stern young couple who were always holding hands. The boy wore an oversized black coat, she floated within a billowy skirt, and I never saw them speak. They looked like they stepped out of an [Aubrey Beardsley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey%5FBeardsley?ref=jamesreeves.co#/media/File:Beardsley-peacockskirt.PNG) print, and I’m surprised how heartened I was to see that Romanticism is still kicking.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/85/bb/85bbc222-eb2e-4bcf-8b92-f241768e9260/content/images/2025/03/w-1200.jpeg)

Lee Ufan, **Relatum-Silence* (2010). Lee Ufan Museum, Naoshima.

I was moved by a hunched boulder that appeared to pray before a glossy sheet of metal.

A line from Tatsuo Miyajima caught my attention: *Keep changing. Connect with everything. Continue forever.* I purchased a copy of [his sketchbook](https://www.akionagasawa.com/en/shop/books/akionagasawa/keep-changing-connect-with-everything-continue-forever/?ref=jamesreeves.co), and C. bought a letter-opener shaped like a bird.

I always get drowsy on ferries. It’s such a fight to stay awake. The amniotic rocking of the waves, I guess.

Japan has the best coffee, especially the cans of iced black charcoal.

On the island of Teshima, we took a long rainy walk down an empty road to get our heartbeats archived for posterity at Christian Boltanski's [*Les Archives du Cœur*](https://benesse-artsite.jp/en/art/boltanski.html?ref=jamesreeves.co)*,* where a lone lightbulb in a dark hallway pulses to the beat of any one of the 90,000 archived heartbeats, generating the effect of a sinister rave in a forgotten factory.

You’re given two attempts to record your heartbeat. My first recording was a slow industrial thump that made me grateful for all the time I've spent running, but there was a slight scuffle against my shirt, so I tried again. The second recording was a disaster, and now the sound of a microphone snaking through a noisy forest of chest hair has been archived for eternity.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/85/bb/85bbc222-eb2e-4bcf-8b92-f241768e9260/content/images/2025/03/IMG_0537.jpeg)

Postcards from Ryue Nishizawa and Rei Naito's **Matrix*, where photography is forbidden. 

I believe the function of art is to create a situation where language falls apart, and this happened at Teshima. An absolute hush came upon me when I stepped into the strange curves of Ryue Nishizawa and Rei Naito's [*Matrix*](https://hicarquitectura.com/2023/05/ryue-nishizawa-teshima-art-museum-2/?ref=jamesreeves.co). Beneath the oval of a cloudy sky, droplets of water darted across the concrete to join larger rivulets that fed into a puddle. It's a remarkable feat to make water look alien.

But is there a correlation between the effort required to view a work of art and the degree of my appreciation for it? Perhaps this is why I've never felt anything close to the sublime while flicking through images on a screen.

Is a digital sublime possible?

In America, the men's restroom is typically a site of unconscionable body horror. But in Japan, even the public restroom at a far-flung bus station was immaculate. My home country is fucking barbaric.

A resonant moment from Bruce Nauman’s [*One Hundred Live and Die*](https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2019/03/22/the-spirit-and-the-damage-done-on-bruce-naumans-100-live-and-die/?ref=jamesreeves.co) says "Try and live."

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/85/bb/85bbc222-eb2e-4bcf-8b92-f241768e9260/content/images/2025/03/IMG_0410.jpeg)

Bruce Nauman, **One Hundred Live and Die,* 1984 at Benesse Art Museum, Naoshima