It’s not often one can see works by
Nauman, Hockney or Giacometti
as you feast on Wagyu beefPHOTOGRAPHS: ENSO ANGO; DENIS PIEL; TADAO ANDO ARCHITECT & ASSOCIATES; TEAM LAB TESHIMA ART MUSEUM[with rustic glasses and country
and western on the radio, topped
off with the best clam pasta I’ve ever
had. After, I check into Yui guest-
house, and quickly discover that it,
too, is the best: the best place I’ve
stayed in Japan, with its tatami-
matted floors, rice-papered walls, a
bath that keeps itself warm and a
delightful little garden. It’s a private
heaven, if heaven is outfitted with a
kitchen with an induction-heat
stove. I sleep blissfully.
The next morning, I’m up early to
see the final island, Inujima, and its
Seirensho Art Museum, once a dis-
used copper refinery from the early
20th century. In the ruins, Yukinori
Yanagi has created a maze of mirrors
that gives the sense of being in a
boundless corridor. At the end is a
projection of a dying star, engulfed
in flames, while the shadows of
other guests reflect off the mirrors.
I stop for lunch at the village of
Inujima, where the population hovers
below 50 and which is by far themost charming of any place on the
three art islands. Inujima is a beauti-
fully preserved series of traditional,
low-slung wooden houses with tiny
open gardens. At one end there is a
community garden with a green-
house, beyond which the dark green
of a forested hill slopes gently up-
wards. There is a café called Uki,
where I sit and listen to the waiter
lowering the needle onto a vinyl record,
and eat yet more delicious pasta and
a banana buckwheat pancake.
As I am about to leave, an old
man, sitting on a chair by the path,
gestures at me to join him as he
walks into his garden; I can hardly
understand what he is asking, but
follow anyhow. His eyes shine.
There, in a tiny pond, are nine 30-
year-old koi carp happily and heftily
beating through the water. I try not
to think about the bullet train that
will soon speed me back north, towards
Japan’s metropolises. Instead, my
mind brims with the enchantment
of the unexpected. (114 Tatler August 2019 tatler.comChichu Art Museum, Naoshima‘Matrix’ by Rei Naito08-19TRAVEL-Main.indd 114 11/06/2019 16:02