Over the sunny autumn weekend of Saturday, October 29 and Sunday, October 30, 2016 members of the MAMC, Mori Art Museum membership program undertook a tour of “KENPOKU ART 2016,” complete with commentary by Mori Art Museum Director and “KENPOKU ART” General Director Nanjo Fumio.
The “KENPOKU ART 2016” (Saturday, September 17 - Sunday, November 20, 2016) art festival debuted this year in 6 towns and cities in northern Ibaraki Prefecture. With Nanjo serving as General Director, the festival featured around 100 works of art, divided into coastal and mountain displays.
The impossibility of covering all the works in a single day prompted MAMC to design a tour consisting of 2 full days and an overnight. The following is a photo report of the event.
Day 1: Seaside area
■Tenshin Memorial Museum of Art, Ibaraki
Here participants in the tour viewed a series of installations by teamLab, also provided a huge hit at “The Universe and Art” exhibition at the Mori Art Museum. A total of 8 works were on display, including a new piece introduced by Inoko Toshiyuki at a MAMC Night talk event.
teamLab Flowers Bloom in an Infinite Universe inside a Teacup
The museum also contains the Okakura Tenshin Memorial Room.
■Rokkaku-do and Tenshin Residence garden
Next the tour took in the hexagonal Rokkaku-do and garden of the Tenshin Residence.
This is where Okakura Tenshin lived with figures such as Yokoyama Taikan and Shimomura Kanzan after leaving Tokyo.
At the time, Okakura was head of the Oriental art department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, so apparently was commuting to Boston all the way from here in Izura.
Artificial Rock No.109 by Zhan Wang, who also has a work on display at Toranomon Hills.
Suda Yoshihiro's Weeds in the Rokkaku-do.
■Takado Maehama coast
Ilya & Emilia Kabakov's The Fallen Sky.
The contrast between the work and the clear sky was striking.
Tour participants assemble for a souvenir photo.
TetraPad by Nitipak Samsen
■Hozumike Residence
The venue here was an Ibaraki prefectural heritage building.
Ueno Yuji, As a person, gaze up to the sky and stand on the ground.
Created using a 3D printer instead of fresh flowers.
cockle of pearl blue - to the sky, from the sky - by Ibaraki-based artist Ito Kosho
The splendid old traditional home and garden ranked as artworks in their own right.
■RC Airport
“RC Airport” is apparently an area used by radio-controlled aircraft enthusiasts. We're not sure what possessed them to display a work of art somewhere not shown on the map, however luckily an online map search revealed the location.
There was a short walk up a susuki grass-lined path to reach the artwork.
Some of the group crossed the vast open expanse for a closer look.
Pieter Vermeersch's precisely horizontal Untitled (kenpoku).
■Oiwa Shrine
Oiwa Shrine is known as a place of mysterious spiritual power. The trio of cedars in the grounds are 500 years old, and have prefectural natural heritage status. 2 works were installed here.
Moriyama Akane's Mirage in the forest, which looks different depending on the angle of viewing.
Okamura Miki's Oiwasan Unryu-zu (painting of dragon and clouds) on the ceiling of the shrine.
Apparently the ball held by the dragon has the Earth painted on it.
■Hitachi Civic Center
The Hitachi Civic Center is located in front of Hitachi Station.
Looking from the outside of the building there is a giant sphere, and inside, there were works for viewing at the Tenkyu Gekijo planetarium.
Ken + Julia Yonetani, Crystal Palace: The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nuclear Nations
Left: Despite what the destination display says, this was not a bus to the mountains, but Tea Mäkipää's Noah's Bus.
Right: Inside the bus were some cute animals.
■Hitachi Station building
Hitachi Station, built in 2011 with design supervision by Sejima Kazuyo, was our final stop on the first day.
The station building photographed from the train on our way there, showing
In the corridor: the Four Rainbows, work in situ, Daniel Buren for KENPOKU ART 2016. JAPAN by Daniel Buren
Member of the group looking at Murakami Fumiaki's Landscape Magic Lantern. Outside went completely dark.
Day 2: Mountain area
■Kujiragaoka
First stop on the second day of the tour was the Kujiragaoka region, apparently so named because when viewed from a distance, it resembles a whale. As the name suggests (oka meaning hill), Kujiragaoka is on a rise with views over the town.
Panoramic view shown to us specially from the location of Ameya Norimizu's Letter from.
In front of Hara Takafumi's Signs of Memory 2016 - pink windows project in kujiragaoka at the Umezu Kaikan.
■Fukuroda Falls
The tunnel leading to the Fukuroda Falls was the site of Jung Hye Ryun's Serial possibility-fukuroda fall.
Emerge from the tunnel...
And there are the Fukuroda Falls, one of Japan's “three famous waterfalls”!
■The former Uwaoka Elementary School
A work was displayed in these school buildings closed in 2001.
The old school buildings are also used frequently as a film and television location.
Tanaka Shintaro's Church of silence, or border of silence
The black liquid is ink. Apparently one visitor did fall into this work...
■The former Asakawa Hot Spring
Sejima Kazuyo's Spring at the former Asakawa Hot Spring is an aluminum foot bath with a constant supply of hot water bubbling out of the center.
Director Nanjo Fumio gave his feet a soak too.
A beautiful rainbow appeared directly above the work for just a moment.
■The former Yawara Seishonen-no-ie
The former Yawara Seishonen-no-ie, situated in remote natural surroundings, was a youth training facility. It is by the Kuji River, where tour participants also spotted a large white heron.
Utterly absorbed in taking photos of Zadok Ben-David's Blackfield.
A chance encounter with artist Hara Takafumi (left), whose work was on display in the Kujiragaoka area.
■Unoccupied shops of Ishizawa district
This venue consisting of two adjacent vacant commercial premises: a former video game arcade and clothing store, in the Ishizawa district of the city of Hitachiomiya, was the site of a large work and final stop on our tour.
Michael Beutler's A guest at the Joycam's
Made from locally sourced materials, without the use of nails.
This massive 10 m x 7.6 m painting is moon satellite by Uchiumi Satoshi, who also has a work at Toranomon Hills.
The works shown here are just a fraction of those seen on the tour. In order to view as many of the festival offerings as possible, we put together an ambitious schedule with breaks just for lunch on both days. Over 2 days we visited 14 locations and viewed works by 39 artists / artist units.
It was such fun we are now thinking of putting together another of these tours next year: hope you can join us!
Text: Imamura Akiko (Marketing Group, Mori Art Museum)
■Relevant Information
・Membership MAMC
・MAMC members' event
・Welcome to the World of Nomura Kazuhiro!
“Roppongi Crossing 2016” MAMC Night
・Murakami makes a surprise appearance!
MAMC events held at “Takashi Murakami: The 500 Arhats”
・The Universe and Art: Princess Kaguya, Leonardo da Vinci, teamLab
July 30, 2016 - January 9, 2017
