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Visitors to Naoshima, a small island off the south coast of Japan, are surrounded by art. You can even spend the night in one of its galleries
I'm standing in a hut in pitch darkness and a man is trying to tell me what to do. In Japanese. This is something of a problem, as I don't speak the language, and he clearly doesn't speak English. As he gently presses on my shoulders, I attempt to take a seat and promptly sit on someone's lap. Whispered apologies and slightly hysterical, hushed giggles ensue before I find a space on the bench and then quiet falls. As we continue to sit there in the darkness, a faint glow begins to shine gently. It's like the dawn of sight, and it's all part of the masterplan. In James Turrell's Minamidera, the perception of light is a matter of careful design. And in an age when 'experience' has become the focal point of so many advertising, branding and marketing campaigns, here the experience is all there is.
A modern art mecca
Light plays an important role in many of the galleries and installations on Naoshima, a small island off the south coast of Japan that in recent years has become something of a modern art mecca. Three galleries feature works by artists such as Bruce Nauman, Walter de Maria and Lee Ufan. The buildings were designed by Tadao Ando, the self-taught Japanese architect who predominantly uses cast-in-place concrete, with steel, wood and glass, in his...