I’m Kenichi Fukuhara from Benesse Corporation.
Today, I'll talk about a project of contemporary art,
which our company chairman Soichiro Fukutake has been working on
for over 20 years.
Soichiro Fukutake is not just a company owner who loves art,
but a very radical man.
I was attracted to this aspect of him,
and began to work with him 6 years ago.
I was also involved in this art project.
So, I’ll talk our art project today.
This is Naoshima island.
Its area is 80 square kilometers.
Its population is 3,300.
It has a refinery of Mitsubishi Materials
in the northern part,
and we carry out our project in the southern part.
In 2009, it had 360,000 visitors,
and 20% of them were from foreign countries.
In 2010, Setouchi International Art Festival 2010
was held from July to October,
and had 940,000 visitors.
Now, I’ll talk about what happened to this island.
Back in 1986, because of longtime refinement,
Naoshima was a bare mountain,
where now Mitsubishi Materials carry a very clean operation.
One day, during the bubble economy,
a major developer bought the land
in order to make it into a resort island.
But, they ended in a deadlock and sold it up.
This was when we bought the land.
At that time, Fukutake’s dream was
to make this land a Mecca of world’s art,
by bringing contemporary art to this area.
A Mecca, where pilgrims who seek for beauties
or discoveries come from all over the world.
That’s what he said recklessly.
And the partner he chose was
this person: Tadao Ando
-- Ando received the Order of Culture in 2010.
When he heard Fukutake’s vision,
he was so surprised and thought it's crazy.
But, hearing to Fukutake strongly and repeatedly saying
"Economy ought to be a follower of culture”
“I’m eager to contribute to human beings by culture,
instead of running after economical profit”.
Ando reluctantly agreed to take part in the project.
This is our first work, made in 1989.
It is a campground.
You can see a Pao here,
which was brought from Mongolia.
It was made to have the children
to realize the beauty of the Setouchi area.
Since then, the whole project has moved on in earnest.
This is a hotel with a museum designed in 1992,
by Tadao Ando.
Here we place contemporary artworks.
This was the starting point of our art project.
It started with a will to make a strong impact
by placing lots of works with strong messages.
I just talked about a hotel.
This Oval hotel building was designed in 1995 by Ando.
Here’s a pond in the middle,
and these are the doors to each room.
In the night, it is lighted up and is very fantastic.
This Oval building is situated on a hill
and is connected to a museum with a tramcar.
It is just wonderful.
I reccomend you to experience it someday.
After this, two more hotels buildings,
the Beach and the Park, were built.
They are wooden buildings, which are rare in Ando's work.
There are four hotel buildings in total.
They all are a part of the modern art.
This is one of the works inside the building
titled "100 Live and Die" by Bruce Nauman.
It continues to blink and show messages irregularly.
The messages are made up
with action words of human beings and the word ‘LIVE’ or ‘DIE’,
like “eat and live,” “eat and die,” “kiss and live”, and “kiss and die".
Some works are completed
by using the museum site and inviting the artist.
This is the first one of our site-specific works,
by Jannis Kounellis.
This artwork is made with rice bowls and plates,
which people of the island used to use, and driftwood.
These things are wrapped around with
rusty lead plate, like suchi roll. It's quite a big artwork.
These days, some part of it is getting squashed
from the weight,
and spaces are emerging.
This is a work by Richard Long.
This artist is famous for the art pieces
that are rarely displayed for people.
He made this art piece
by picking up driftwood of Naoshima.
There are also 21 outdoor works.
This is "Pumpkin" by Yayoi Kusama.
It’s about 2 meters high.
This is the symbolic artwork of Naoshima.
This work is designed by a Chinese artist, Cai Guo-Qiang.
He was the producer of the gorgeous opening ceremony
in Beijing Olympics.
He also won the first Benesse Prize in Venice Biennale,
which is an international festival of contemporary art.
When we asked Cai for his artwork,
he came with a geomancer, and had him find
where life energy flows most in Naoshima.
So, he chose this place for his artwork,
and placed 36 rocks
so that the life energy reflects between them and flows in together
to the jacuzzi bath in the middle.
This work is titled Cultural Melting Bath.
You can bathe in it if you stay at the hotel.
It’s so romantic.
Next, I’ll talk about the main works in Naoshima.
In the island, there are many desolated houses.
So we changed one of them like this.
Changing only the outside is trivial,
so we asked Tatsuo Miyajima to change the inside,
and he completed as you see in this slide.
All of these are counting numbers 1 to 9,
and they are counting up in different rhythms,
each of which is comfortable for each islander
from 5 to 95 years old.
Each counter keeps the comfortable rhythm of each person.
This is a work by Tadao Ando.
It used to be a desolated temple.
Inside of it is by James Turrell.
He is an artist concerned with light.
It’s totally dark inside.
You can't see a thing in, even your fingers.
But gradually, your eyes will get used to the darkness
and will vaguely see a screen.
Actually, it’s not a screen, but a space.
This artwork is just interesting.
I would like you to experience it.
And this used to be a desolated shrine.
Hiroshi Sugimoto restored it
and it still is a formal shrine.
This is the inside of the shrine.
On the top, there are 24 tons of Mannari rocks
from Mannnari in Okayama Prefecture.
These are the stairs made of optical glasses.
This is a public bathhouse.
Fukutake asked the artist Shinro Ohtake to make a public bath,
because they don’t have one in Naoshima.
He’s an artist who uses things he picked up somewhere.
The upper left of the house is a steering room of a fishing boat.
This bathhouse is also our company’s belongings,
but people in Naoshima do all the management.
The bathing fee is 500 yen for travelers,
and 300 yen for the residents of Naoshima,
but all the profit is given back to Naoshima
While artists stay in the island for their work,
they gradually get along well with the residents.
So, old men and women in their 60s or 70s
actively explain modern art to the visitors as volunteer guides.
That’s what Naoshima is about.
On top of it, it triggered an happening.
A famous old man in the island, Mr. Kikuta,
who was called Kikuji and was 78 years old,
fell in love with an art-loving 28 year old woman
who came from Kyoto,
and got married with her after all.
This incident made the other old men in the island active.
(Laughter)
They chat up to people at the Miura Harbor.
Some old men have about 150 e-mail friends.
I am sure this is literally
local revitalization.
This man is Kikuji.
He’s a tough guy.
This is an elephant Shinro Ohtake brought
from a treasure museum that closed down.
Its name is Sadako.
This, Chichu Art Museum is wonderful.
In this Chichu Art Museum designed by Tadao Ando,
Claude Monet’s 5 paintings from the Water Lilies series
by 2-by-6-meters are displayed.
The floor is made by marble.
It's covered with about 200,000 marble cubes.
This artwork is also interesting.
The houses with these kinds of curtains
offer free restrooms or teas.
This service has occurred naturally
from the heart of hospitality of the people in the island,
and the pilgrims who came to seek for art receiving the service.
Then, we spread this project out
to the islands in the Setouchi area,
and we held the Setouchi International Art Festival.
Setouchi area is a victim
inherited the negative legacy of Japan’s modernization.
For example, the Hansen’s disease in Oshima island,
industrial waste in Teshima island,
and refineries in Naoshima and Inujima islands.
Ogijima and Megijima islands were so small that they became depopulated.
To bring energy back to these area,
we develop the art project.
For 13 years from 1978,
a vicious man dumped industrial waste illegally
in this Teshima island.
It piled up to 500,000 tons.
Residents complained hard to the prefecture,
but there was no reaction.
It was announced that the island was cultivating earthworms.
That’s completely wrong.
If you go there, it smelled very bad.
Smoke of burnt old tires were seen from Takamatsu city.
Birds fell down,
and the sea was destroyed.
This is a picture of the industrial waste piled up.
Teshima residents even wanted to move from their land,
because their prefecture didn’t respond at all to their complaint.
In 1990, the man was arrested, finally.
This was done by the Hyogo prefectural police department.
But it was not until 1995 that the waste began to be disposed.
Now, the waste is carried and incinerated in Naoshima.
It will take 20 years to dispose all of them.
The beautiful island Teshima’s sea was destroyed,
but it is recovering gradually now.
And we are carrying out our art project here.
At the terraced rice fields,
we grow rice with islanders and volunteers.
The rice from Teshima tastes very good,
because they have delicious spring water.
So, in this year,
we carried out a project under the theme Food and Art.
This is Teshima Art Museum.
This is also wonderful.
This is Inujima island.
There was a refinery here, but closed down 100 years ago.
Hiroshi Sambuichi, who is one of the speakers today,
made it into this art museum.
Ask directly to Sambuichi about how wonderful the architecture is.
Inside of the museum is like this.
Fukutake bought Yukio Mishima’s house in Shoutou,
brought the things inside the house,
took them apart into pieces, and placed them like this.
This is Ogi island.
He is a junior high school student.
After he graduate, the school will close down,
because there are no more children who will go there.
In its last year, we held the Art Festival,
so the students were so excited that they welcomed visitors
with the maps in English that they made.
They were making chairs.
And they placed the chairs in the shrine
and made it also as an art piece.
This is Megi island.
This is Oshima island,
which suffered from the Hansen disease.
We also held the Art Festival in this island,
titled hospitality art project.
This project will probably continue from now on.
so I hope you would visit Oshima island.
There still are about 100 people
who suffer from the Hansen disease.
You can’t listen to their talks without tears.
These are the volunteers in the festival.
Lastly, I'll leave you with this.
All of these projects are supported economically
by Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation,
which is a major shareholder of Benesse Corporation.
These projects are set up with the dividend of the foundation.
Therefore, corporations must earn money,
but the important thing is that
Both corporation and shareholders have
the same sense in value or aim.
Doing my best in managing Benesse, I believe
that our company mission is to pay
lots of dividends to the shareholders,
in other words, to support the art project.