In Japan, Creativity Seeps Into Everything Outside the Traditional

THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN, SEPTEMBER 7-8, 2019 8 TRAVEL + INDULGENCE theaustralian.com.au/travel GETTY IMAGES ART OF THE SUBLIME Creative forces at work on a tour of Japan IN THE KNOW SHARON VERGHIS Setouchi Triennale contemporary art festival spans multiple islands and takes place over three seasons. The final t’s still early on a warm night in Kana- season for this year’s festival, the autumn zawa, but things are already getting a lit- sessions, run from September 28 to tle rowdy at the next table. We are at a November 4. A wide range of permanent little izakaya in this ancient castle town, exhibitions can be seen at any time of and halfway through a string of perfectly year before the next triennale in 2022. plated courses: devil’s tongue jelly, Inside Japan’s 12-night Hidden Japan Ichunks of wobbly red tuna on a perilla leaf, a group tour includes two days in the plate of firefly squid. Setouchi region, with a visit to Naoshima To our left, a table of Westerners struggle art island; from $7315 a person, twin- with variations of the seiza position, dubbed share. The company also has a 15-night the “foreigner’s nightmare”, in which you Japan Arts Trail self-guided trip, which kneel on the floor, feet tucked beneath the takes in all of Japan’s top art destinations, buttocks. To our right, a table of beery office including Naoshima; from $9234 a workers are celebrating not just the end of the person, twin-share. working week but, perhaps, the ascension of The concrete shells Cathay Pacific operates more than 70 Crown Prince Naruhito to the Chrysanth- of Teshima Art flights a week to Hong Kong from emum Throne. Museum, top; Yayoi Australian ports, with a seasonal twice- Kanazawa, on the central north coast of Kusama’s yellow weekly service from Hong Kong to the main island of Honshu, which will be my pumpkin on Komatsu from April to October. springboard for an art journey from Kyoto’s Naoshima, above; ■ insidejapantours.com Aoi Matsuri Festival to the Setouchi Trienna- Aoi Matsuri Festival ■ setouchi-artfest.jp le on the art islands off Kagawa prefecture, on in Kyoto, left ■ cathaypacific.com Shikoku island. It’s my first visit to Japan before. As a vet- eran arts journalist, I’m excited. I’ve covered apparently fetch a pretty penny back in Seoul. arts events from St Petersburg to Mumbai but At nearby Honmura village, six traditional have always been curious to see Japan, to homes, distinctive with their smoked cedar discover why it’s often spoken of as an outlier frames impervious to fire, salt and insects, when it comes to arts and aesthetics. have been turned into tiny art galleries. Inside Over the next nine days, I come to under- the gloom of the 200-year-old Kadoya hut, I stand. Art seeps into everything outside the sit, hypnotised, by Tatsuo Miyajima’s 1998 traditional frame of canvas and festival, often work, Sea of Time, a rippling pool filled with for no obvious reason. Why the elaborately 125 blinking digital counters. I learn that Mi- beautiful manhole covers I see from the small collector, tells me why. For the Japanese, Tetsuhiko Fukutake has turned the once yajima invited some of the villagers to place resort town of Yamanaka to the port of Taka- shadow is prized, not light. struggling region into a burgeoning contem- the counters in the pool. One elderly local, matsu, for example? Why the culinary theatre In a mass-produced world, Kanazawa is an porary art hub. The Setouchi Triennale, held since deceased, told his family: “When I am of kaiseki, the Japanese haute cuisine artisanal heaven. Here, ancient traditions every three years since 2010 across a chain of dead, don’t visit me in the cemetery, visit me tradition that becomes my favourite food-as- thrive: 400-year-old gold leaf craft; beautiful 12 so-called art islands in the Seto Inland Sea, here.” It’s a perfect expression of the artist’s art experience? Why the artful arranging of Kutani porcelain; lovely children’s toys. Busi- attracts a sizeable international audience. view of death and infinity — “keep changing, skewered baby octopus at Kyoto’s Nishiki ness is brisk in the elegant teahouses and What’s not to like about the partnership of connect with everything, continue forever”. Market, or the careful pruning of trees at shops in the historic Higashi Chaya district, art, nature and architecture in these astonish- Storm House, a traditional house where Kenrokuen garden in Kanazawa? where we gorge on green tea and miso ice ingly pretty former fishing villages, reached you can sit, safe and warm, as a manufactured What lies behind the urge to beautify the creams while watching the passing theatre of only by ferry and remote enough to entice fierce thunderstorm hits, is surreal fun. But everyday? My guide is a slim bible, an obscure young Asian tourists in trendy rented geisha jaded art world regulars? The art, a mix of for me, Christian Boltanski’s Les Archives du though suddenly hip 1933 gem, In Praise of makeup and kimono (a real geisha wouldn’t permanent and new commissions rotated Coeur (2010) is a standout. Since 2008, the Shadows, by Japanese literary titan Junichiro be caught dead taking selfies). each iteration across the various sites, is French artist has been recording heartbeats Tanizaki. It doesn’t explain what makes this Kyoto, too, is an eye-opener. Here, in this uniformly excellent. Big art brands dominate. all over the world; more than 60,000 are ar- nation prize beauty in all things, but it does ancient cradle and incubator of Japan’s tradi- Naoshima, the main art island, is Yayoi chived in this space. We walk through a give me a working guide to the inexplicable tions, I watch one of its biggest cultural festiv- Kusama territory. It’s hard to miss the avant- womb-like tunnel, the Heart Room, buffeted prettiness I see over the next nine days, from als, Aoi Matsuri, a ceremonial appeasing of garde octogenarian’s retina-scorching 1994 by darkness, the dull thrum of what art critic the sensual curves of Kanazawa lacquerware the deities predating Kyoto’s establishment Yellow Pumpkin sitting pertly on an old Ren Fukuzumi called an “exploding” heart. I (a good bowl is akin to cradling a baby, Tani- as the national capital. wharf like alien flotsam, surrounded by grope blindly in the dark with only a single zaki writes) to the lovely machiya, or town- But it is the art islands off Kagawa, the final young Kusama devotees snapping selfies in lightbulb blinking like a giant eye. house, so bereft of light. My guide, Richard, a leg of my art journey, that lingers and reson- co-ordinated yellow and black polka-dotted It’s an unexpectedly moving experience. droll British-born, Japanese-speaking, SOAS ates. Here, an art-led rejuvenation project outfits while nearby five Korean women I’m not alone. Local guide Aya tells me about University of London graduate and Zen scroll seeded in 1985 by Benesse publishing titan happily hunt for four-leaf clovers; they a French woman who alarmed staff when she AUSE01Z01TR - V1.

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