PRESS RELEASE May 2017
Media contact: press@odawara-af.com For general inquiry: [email protected]
ODAWARA ART FOUNDATION ENOURA OBSERVATORY OPENS TO THE PUBLIC FROM OCTOBER 9, 2017
Odawara Art Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of its new home, the Enoura Observatory. After more than 10 years of planning, preparation and construction this multidisciplinary arts facility will open to the public on October 9 this year.
The Enoura site, situated on a hilly citrus grove in the Kataura district of Odawara, offers breathtaking panoramic views of the Bay of Sagami. The facility was envisioned by contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto as a forum for disseminating art and culture both within Japan and to the world and will comprise a gallery space, two stages, a tea house, and other features that make the entire premise into a truly magnificent landscape.
The foundation will exhibit a selection of Sugimoto’s artworks in the 100-meter gallery and present events and programs on the outside Stone Stage and Optical Glass Stage. The Odawara Art Foundation looks forward to welcoming many guests to the Enoura Observatory. Concept Throughout human history, art has embodied the pinnacle of our mental and spiritual evolution.
When we first became self-aware beings, art commemorated this awakening in cave paintings.
Later, art went on to manifest the forms of the divine, and splendidly symbolize the might of kings.
Today, as we stand at a critical point in our evolution, art has lost its onetime clarity of purpose. What should art today express? We cannot answer this question simply, but what we can do is return to the wellspring of human consciousness, explore its sources, and chart the course it has followed thus far.
This is the mission the Odawara Art Foundation had in mind when we designed Enoura Observatory.
At the dawn of history, when the ancients first gained self-awareness, their first step was to search for and identify the place they occupied within the vastness of the starry firmament. This search for meaning and identity was also the primal force behind art. The winter solstice, when new life is reborn; the summer solstice, when the great pendulum of the seasons swings back again; the spring and autumn equinoxes, milestones at the midpoint between extremes. I believe that if we turn once more to our ancient observation of the heavens, we will find glimmers that point the way to our future.
Hiroshi Sugimoto Founder, Odawara Art Foundation
About Hiroshi Sugimoto
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s signature practice spans the mediums of performing arts, photography, sculpture, installation and architecture. His art deals with history and temporal existence through a variety of subject matters He explores issues surrounding time, empiricism, and metaphysics that bridge eastern and western ideologies while examining the nature of perception and the origins of consciousness.
Sugimoto was born in Tokyo in 1948 and moved to the U.S.A. in 1970. He has lived in New York City since 1974. In 2008, he founded the New Material Research Laboratory, an architectural design office, and in 2009 he established the Odawara Art Foundation.
Sugimoto was awarded Mainichi Art Award in 1988, Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography in 2001, the 21st Praemium Imperiale in 2009, Medal with Purple Ribbon by the Japanese government in 2010, and conferred the Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (The Order of Arts and Letters) by the French government in 2013. 2 Enoura Observatory
Site Address: 362-1 Enoura, Odawara, Kanagawa, Japan Owned by: Odawara Art Foundation Main purposes: Host cultural events, exhibitions and performances Concept by: Hiroshi Sugimoto Designed and supervised by: New Material Research Laboratory Detailed design and contract administration by: Tomoyuki Sakakida Architect and Associates Co., Ltd. Constructed by: Kajima Corporation
Special support by: Japan Society, NY
Open: Thursday - Tuesday Closed: Wednesday Visiting hours: Three entrance times a day from April to October / 10:00, 13:00, 16:00 Two entrance times a day from November to March / 11:00, 14:00
A limited number of guests will be allowed admittance at each entrance time. Each visit is for a maximum of 2 hours.
The Observatory sits on 60,000 square meters of land. Only 10,000 square meters is developed land while the remaining 50,000 square meters is forest and farmland. For visitors to better experience the site and capture the feeling of the pre-modern era, we decided to limit the number of visitors admitted at a time. It is estimated that each person will enjoy approximately 760 square meters of personal space while exploring the site.
All visits to the Enoura Observatory are by appointment only. Reservations can be made through the foundation’s website (http://www.odawara-af.com) after July 20, 2017.
Admission: 3,240 yen *There will be no discount price for groups. *Due to the unique nature of the premises and for safety reasons, visitors must be twelve years or older. We thank you for your understanding.
3 Upcoming schedule for 2017: After July 1 Start accepting requests for media and interview requests on site by appointment Thursday, July 20 Enoura Observatory will begin accepting advanced online reservations for the general public Friday, October 6 Press preview at Enoura Observatory (tentative) Monday, October 9 Enoura Observatory’s first day open to the public (reservations required)
More information can be found on the foundation’s website.
Upcoming Exhibition: At the time of Enoura Observatory’s opening in October, 2017, works from Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascape series will be on view in the Summer Solstice Observation Gallery.
Caribbean Sea, Jamaica, 1980 Sea of Japan, Oki, 1987 Boden Sea, Utwill, 1993
By train: The nearest train stations are Nebukawa Station or Manazuru Station (both on JR Tokaido Main Line)
1) Nebukawa Station on JR Tokaido Main Line Plans are being made for a shuttle bus to run between the station and the Observatory, which will take approximately 7 minutes. For those who prefer to go by foot, it takes 40-45 minutes up a mountain road. However, it is highly recommended that visitors use the shuttle bus or taxi. 2) Manazuru Station on JR Tokaido Main Line It is approximately 12 minutes by taxi from the station to the Observatory.
By car: Parking is limited. Please book a parking spot when making a reservation for your visit.
4 Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Thoughts on Odawara
I owe a lot to Odawara. For one thing, my earliest childhood memory is of the sea, seen from the window of the Shonan train running on the old Tokaido line from Atami to Odawara. When the train came out of the twin tunnels, there was the vast Pacific Ocean, extending away to a sharp horizon line that snapped my eyes wide open. In that moment I also awoke to the fact that I was me, and that I was here on this earth.
I am fond of asking “What if…” about history. What if the Tokugawa shogunate had selected Odawara as its base of power instead of Edo? When the Tokugawa clan moved to the Kanto region around 1600 after the downfall of Odawara Castle at the hands of Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1590, it seems that Odawara, formerly the seat of power of Kanto’s most powerful and prominent clan, the Hojo clan, would have been the most attractive site for the Tokugawa shogunate’s own castle. However, the first shogun, Ieyasu, chose Edo, then just a sleepy hamlet, no doubt because he wanted a clean slate for urban development. I am sure, however, that Odawara must have been a tempting option for Ieyasu, as there was already a magnificent castle there for the taking. If he had chosen it, today Odawara would be the capital of Japan, a thicket of skyscrapers rivaling Manhattan or Hong Kong, and what we call “Tokyo” would be nothing more than the middling, provincial bayside city of Edo. Personally, I am glad that Ieyasu made the decision he did. Had Odawara become the capital, its marvelous natural scenery would be utterly ruined, and I would not have had that primal encounter with the ocean as my first memory.
As if guided by an unseen hand, I was drawn to this place of memories. In a sprawling mikan citrus grove in Enoura, I established the Odawara Art Foundation with the aim of conveying the essence of Japanese culture to a wider audience. While Odawara was passed over in favor of Tokyo as the site of Japan’s capital, Odawara has the potential to be the capital of communication of our culture to the world. This is because the unique character of Japanese culture, a continuous legacy dating back to the prehistoric Jomon period, has been the art of living in harmony with nature. The Japanese people developed a unique culture incorporating the worship of myriad deities and spirits of the natural realm. In today’s grim world of rampant materialism and consumerism, when so much of this natural splendor has been destroyed, it is the revival of these ancient Japanese traditions that we need most.
5 Architectural Overview by Hiroshi Sugimoto
Backing onto the Hakone Mountains and overlooking Sagami Bay, the picturesque Enoura district of Odawara is an important natural heritage site. The Odawara Art Foundation’s complex, entitled Enoura Observatory, comprises multiple structures: an art gallery, a stone stage, an optical glass stage, a tea house, a garden, several gates and an offices block. Each of the structures incorporates traditional Japanese building styles and methods, bringing them to life to provide visitors with an overview of Japan’s architectural history. The mission of the complex is to revive traditional building methods which are in danger of being lost and to pass them on to future generations.
Meigetsu Gate (“Full Moon Gate”)
The Meigetsu Gate was originally constructed in the Muromachi period (1336 – 1573) to serve as the front gate of the Meigetsuin Temple of the Kenchō-ji branch of the Rinzai sect in Kamakura. When the gate was damaged in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, it passed to Ōgi Rodō, a sukiya-style architect and a master of the tea ceremony, who dismantled it. He subsequently rebuilt it as the gate for the Roppongi mansion of Makoshi Kyōhei, the head of Dai Nippon Brewery (the precursor company of present-day Sapporo Beer and Asahi Beer). In 1945, the Aoyama mansion of Kaichirō Nezu, a tea-ceremony associate of Makoshi’s, was badly damaged in an American air raid and its main gate was destroyed. Makoshi presented the Meigetsu Gate to the Nezu family and it was once again dismantled and transported to serve as the front gate of the Nezu Museum. In 2006, the Nezu Museum was rebuilt, and the gate was later given to the Odawara Art Foundation, which restored and rebuilt it on the Enoura Observatory site.
The gate preserves the forms of the Zen style of building from the Muromachi period and the structure retains mostly the original materials. At the same time as establishing and operating his own architectural firm in the Meiji period (1868 – 1912), Ōgi Rodō was also a connoisseur who collected works of art and had his own perspective on the tea ceremony. He is the Japanese architect whom I respect the most.
6 Winter Solstice Observation Tunnel and Optical Glass Stage
The winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight all year. It also marks the end of one year and the start of another. Ancient cultures around the world celebrated the winter solstice as a turning point in the cycle of death and rebirth. Early humans’ awareness of the movements of the sun and the change of the seasons was one of the factors leading to the development of consciousness. My goal in conceiving of this particular structure was to reconnect people, visually and mentally, to the oldest of human memories.
On the morning of the winter solstice, the sun rises from Sagami Bay, sending its light through the 70-meter tunnel to illuminate a group of large stones at the other end. The optical glass stage, which stands alongside the tunnel, catches the light on its cut edges and glows, appearing to float on its wooden kakezukuri frame above the sea.
Summer Solstice Observation Gallery
One hundred meters above sea level stands a gallery that is one hundred meters long. The structure is architecturally ambitious: a one-hundred-meter long structural wall is covered in Ōya stone with its peeling, speckled skin; the opposing wall is made of glass windows — 37 large panes side by side with no visible support — for a completely column-free space. The last twelve meters of the gallery jut out toward the sea and double as a viewing platform.
7 Stone Stage
The origins of performing arts in Japan go back to the ancient legend of Ama-no-Iwato. According to this legend, Ame-no-uzume (the dawn goddess) danced in order to lure forth Ameterasu-ōmikami (the sun
goddess), who was hiding in a cave. In a performance
that continues to the present day, this episode is recreated in a votive dance performed on a grass- covered stage during the On-Matsuri festival at the
Kasuga Taisha Shrine in Nara, when the divine spirits
cross from the Kasuga Wakamiya-jinja Shrine at night. (The Japanese word for theatrical performance —shibai—is supposed to have its origins in the word shiba meaning “grass.”)
The design of the stone stage is based on the dimensions of a Noh stage. It is constructed mainly out of the many rocks dug up when the site was being prepared for development. Just a few meters below the surface here is hard bedrock, and located nearby are the Nebukawa and Komatsu stone quarries. At the each of the stage’s four corners are large stones which were excavated in the neighborhood and originally destined for the walls of Edo Castle. From the chisel marks on them, it looks as though they were quarried in the early years of the Edo period (1603 – 1868) and then abandoned. For the hashigakari, or bridgeway, leading to the stage we used a single 23-ton stone slab. It is a piece of Takine stone that I came across by chance in Kawauchi in Fukushima prefecture while scouring Japan for rocks and stones.
The axis of the stone bridgeway aligns with the axis of the sun rising from Sagami Bay at the spring and autumn equinox. My conception was for the Noh plays to start just before dawn as the murk of night is giving way to daylight and for the principal actors of the second part of the play to return to the underworld as the sun rises directly behind the stage.
8 Uchōten (“Listen-to-the-Rain”) Teahouse
The Japanese word honkadori refers to the practice of using a quotation from a classic old poem as the basis for creating a new work of art. The Uchōten teahouse is a quotation-and-reinterpretation of the Taian teahouse,
which is thought to have been designed by Sen no Rikyū.
Taian is regarded as a perfect expression of the simple and modest style of tea ceremony (wabi-cha) that Rikyū favored. Light comes through small windows into a tiny
two tatami-mat room to create an extraordinary space.
Whatever wood was most easily available was used rather than anything rare and precious, while the walls were made of cheap mud plaster. Rikyū deliberately created a rustic sanctuary deep within the mountains. I
copied the dimensions of the Taian teahouse without the slightest deviation.
Tenshōan, another teahouse attributed to Rikyū, once stood here in Enoura, the home of the Odawara Art Foundation. When Toyotomi Hideyoshi lay siege to Odawara Castle in 1590 as part of his campaign to eliminate the Hōjō clan, he is supposed to have ordered Rikyū to build the teahouse to boost the morale of his generals. That was just one year before Sen no Rikyū committed ritual suicide.
I decided to incorporate local materials into my teahouse. With great care, we removed the rusty corrugated iron roof from a local stone barn for storing tangerines to use as the teahouse roof. If Rikyū were alive now, a rusty piece of corrugated iron strikes me as precisely the kind of material he would turn to. When it rains, you can hear the raindrops falling from the heavens and drumming on the iron roof: hence the tearoom’s name of U-chō-ten (“rain-listen-heaven”). At dawn on the vernal and autumn equinoxes, the sun shines through the nijiriguchi crawl door. The step of optical glass in front of the crawl door also glows when it catches the sunlight on its cut edges.
The Old Naraya Gate
This gate used to stand outside a detached villa belonging to Naraya, a celebrated traditional inn in the Miyanoshita area of Hakone. The inn shut down in 2001, and years later the municipality of Hakone presented the gate to the Odawara Art Foundation. It is believed to date from around the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923), meaning either the late Taishō or early Shōwa period. After the Second World
9 War, the politicians Konoe Fumimaro and Sasaki Sōichi wrote some of the early drafts of the new Japanese constitution in the Naraya villa, which subsequently became the summer getaway of former prime minister Kishi Nobusuke.
Passing through the Old Naraya Gate leads guests to Uchōten Teahouse.
Stone Torii Gate
This gate is modeled on a stone torii gate in Odachi in Yamagata prefecture which is designated an Important Cultural Asset because it is an exemplar of the old style of torii design. There are wedge marks to evoke the pre-medieval period and an old stone sarcophagus lid is used as the stepping-stone beneath the gate.
The Garden
The garden design is based on the principles of the Sakuteiki (“Records of Garden Making”) written by Tachibana no Toshitsuna in the late Heian period (794 – 1185). I spent more than a decade collecting various magnificent stone ornaments for the garden dating from the Kofun period (250 – 538 AD) to modern times, some dug up from archeological sites and some handed down the generations. The key ones are listed below.
10 ◎ Middle gate stone step in front of the teahouse: Stone sarcophagus lid from Nara region, Kofun period (250 – 538) ◎ Cornerstone from Gangōji Temple: Excavated in Nara (2005), Tenpyō period (729 – 749) ◎ “Tree of life” marble relief: From trading company façade in Venice, 12th – 13th century ◎ 5-ring pagoda: Kunisaki peninsula, Kamakura period (1185 –1333) ◎ Iron pagoda: Nara, Kamakura period (1185 –1333) ◎ 13-story pagoda: Uchiyamaeikyūji Temple, Nanbokuchō period (1336 –1392) ◎ Iron lantern: Uchiyamaeikyūji Temple, Momoyama period (1573 –1600) ◎ Cornerstone from Kyoto Gojō-Ōhashi bridge: Murano Tōgo, Hiensō, Momoyama period (1573 –1600) ◎ Stone tsukubai washbasin, Nanboku carved seal: Asukaishi, Momoyama period (1573 –1600) ◎ Cornerstone from Togetsukyō bridge: Arashiyama, Kyoto, Momoyama – Edo periods (1573 – 1868) ◎ Guidepost: “Right for Kōya. Left for Yoshino.”: Hashimoto city, Momoyama – Edo periods (1573 – 1868) ◎ Kyoto tramway paving stone: Kyoto, Meiji – Shōwa (1868 – 1989)
When it comes to how I place the stones, I simultaneously follow the medieval traditions and my own original “Sugimoto” style.
10 Press Images
Please fill out the following form and return if you wish to obtain images for publication. Via email to Chieko Inamasu ([email protected]) or Kaori Hashiguchi ([email protected]) Via fax to Odawara Art Foundation at 0465-42-9170
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(1) Optical Glass Stage © Odawara Art Foundation (2) Summer Solstice Observation Gallery © Odawara Art Foundation (3) The tip of the Summer Solstice Observation Gallery © Odawara Art Foundation (4) Winter Solstice Observation Tunnel © Odawara Art Foundation (5) Meigetsu Gate and a foundation stone of Kyoto Gojō-Ōhashi bridge © Odawara Art Foundation (6) Seascape, Sea of Japan, Oki (1987 / gelatin silver print) by Hiroshi Sugimoto © Courtesy of Gallery Koyanagi
12 About Odawara Art Foundation
Founded on December 22, 2009 Authorized as Public Interest Incorporated Foundation on April 1, 2011
Geometry began with our awareness of the circle and the triangle. If you stand on high ground and gaze at the horizon, what appears to be a straight line is, in fact, a segment from a long arc. If you stand on a mountaintop in a remote island and follow the horizon with your eyes, you realize that its end reconnects with its beginning. This is how people realized that the limit of their field of vision is described by a circle. The sun and the stars at night are describing circles as well. The moment that people became conscious of the circle was also the moment that they realized they had consciousness. It was the moment they made the leap from animal to human.
Once the circle had made its way into human consciousness, it was followed by the triangle. That is linked to our consciousness of distance. Using the distance between two known points, humankind could calculate the distance to a third point. Here are the origins of triangulation: now people could measure the land upon which they lived and navigate the seas by the stars.
The triangle was used as the so-called dragon scale element in ancient Japanese coats of arms. Dragons appear as symbols of chaos in myths from every part of the world.
13 The story of the eight-headed, eight-tailed dragon Yamata no Orochi is a famous Japanese legend. Whoever vanquishes the chaos and establishes order proves his right to rule. Thus, when Susa-no-Ō slays the dragon Orochi, one of the three symbols of imperial rule, the Herb-Quelling Great Sword, emerges from its split body.
My concept for the logo of the Odawara Art Foundation was to combine the letters O and A, the first letters of “Odawara” and “Art.” The resulting mark is simultaneously Western and Japanese, since it can be read both as letters from the alphabet, while resembling an ancient Japanese design. When humankind first acquired language, speech supposedly started with vowel sounds: “Oh!” to express surprise and “Ah!” to express admiration. That makes “OA” a very apt symbol for the beginnings of language.
Lastly, it was in 1590 that the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi crushed the local Odawara Hōjō clan, one of Japan’s powerful warrior clans. Their coat of arms was made up of three dragon scales.
I designed the Odawara Art Foundation logo to symbolize the multiple layers of human memory stretching all the way back to ancient times.
1. Both classical and contemporary theater arts shall be produced and staged in the natural surroundings of the Enoura Observatory.
2 Art and other objects from ancient to contemporary, from the Sugimoto Collection and other sources, shall be preserved and exhibited.
3. Academic conferences, seminars, etc. shall be planned and convened, with the goal of surveying, researching, popularizing, and promoting the arts and culture across a wide range of periods and genres from ancient to contemporary and including visual art, traditional architecture, gardens, and other forms of spatial design.
Upcoming Projects:
August 2017 Sugimoto Bunraku Onnagoroshi Abura no Jigoku (The Woman-Killer and the Hell of Oil) at Setagaya Public Theater (Tokyo)
14 Past Projects:
February 2017 Special Preview of New Noh Production: Rikyu – Enoura at Noh Theater, MOA Museum of Art (Shizuoka)
November 2016 Reading Play: Carnal Voice at Sogetsu Hall (Tokyo)
November 2015 Haru no Tayori (Spring Letter) from “Noh: Sugamozuka” at OWL SPOT Toshima Performing Arts Center (Tokyo)
October 2015 Seiji Tsurusawa x Hiroshi Sugimoto Shancha Shami: Music of the Shamisen at Setagaya Public Theater (Tokyo)
August 2014 SANBASO at 2014 Singapore International Festival of Arts at Victoria Theatre (Singapore)
March 2014 Sugimoto Bunraku “Kannon Pilgrimage” from The Sonezaki Love Suicides at Setagaya Public Theatre (Tokyo) and Festival Hall (Osaka)
September-October 2013 European Tour of Sugimoto Bunraku “Kannon Pilgrimage” from The Sonezaki Love Suicides in Madrid, Rome and Paris
April 2013 SANBASO, divine dance -Mansai Nomura + Hiroshi Sugimoto at Sakura Hall, Shibuya Cultural Center Owada (Tokyo)
March 2013 SANBASO, divine dance -Mansai Nomura + Hiroshi Sugimoto at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York)
September 2011 Kami hisomi iki - Our Magic Hour by Mansaku Nomura + Mansai Nomura + Hiroshi Sugimoto at Kanagawa Arts Theatre (Kanagawa) as part of Yokohama Triennale 2011
August 2011 Sugimoto Bunraku Sonezaki Shinju (“Kannon Pilgrimage” from The Sonezaki Love Suicides) at Kanagawa Arts Theatre (Kanagawa)
October 2009 Performance to celebrate the opening of Izu Photo Museum Ningyo Joruri Bunraku Puppet Play Futari Sanbaso at Izu Photo Museum (Shizuoka)
March 2009 Performance to celebrate the establishment of Odawara Art Foundation “A Break-up Letter” from Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself at Gallery Koyanagi (Tokyo)
* Odawara Art Foundation has loaned artworks from the Foundation's collection to both national and international institutions for numerous exhibitions.
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