Naoshima New Museum of Art,
opens on May 31, 2025.
Naoshima New Museum of Art boasts a hilltop location near the Honmura district of Naoshima. The new museum is designed by Tadao Ando, and it will be his tenth architectural work among the art facilities of Benesse Art Site Naoshima. In a three-storied structure that houses two basement floors and a ground floor, the museum will exhibit and build a collection of major works and commissioned works of artists from the Asian region including Japan.
Opening Message
Benesse Art Site Naoshima launched in the late 1980s on the eponymous island in Japan to engage with society and the times, and offer new values through the pursuit of artistic activities on remote islands different from those available in cities, and with the aspiration of building a community in cooperation with locals, and shaping a symbiosis of nature, architecture, and art.
Located in a village and the first to be named after the island, Naoshima New Museum of Art is the latest addition to the nexus of museums and art facilities developed by Benesse Art Site Naoshima on the islands of Naoshima, Teshima, and Inujima. This both encapsulates the idea of creating an art museum that contributes to regional revitalization in association with locals on the island where Benesse Art Site Naoshima's activities originally began, and endeavors to further deepen that symbiosis of art, architecture, nature, and community. With a focus on exhibiting and introducing contemporary art from Asia, including Japan, Naoshima New Museum of Art's wide-ranging projects encompass changing exhibitions and public programs. As a node for the nexus of museums that Benesse Art Site Naoshima's thirty-year project has yielded, this new venue aspires to disseminate diverse perspectives and messages about contemporary society, attract both islanders and people from around the world, and inspire fresh encounters, exchange, insights, imagination, and creativity.
The “new” in the name not only emphasizes a spirit of critical inquiry into different perspectives, the zeitgeist, and society through art and other broader activities, but also reaffirms the creation of new values through Benesse Art Site Naoshima's long-term efforts, and incorporates a desire to look ahead to a future century hence and continue to question and challenge existing values through art.
Naoshima New Museum of Art joins Benesse Art Site Naoshima at a time of political, economic, and social transition, and it is our hope that the museum will create highly diverse viewing experiences through works of art and collaborations with Asian artists astutely examining the circumstances and era in which we live, and will encourage reflection on “benesse=well-being” through perspectives that are local, Asian, and global.
Museum
Naoshima New Museum of Art is newly established in Naoshima's residential area as the first art facility having “Naoshima” in its name and as the tenth structure designed for Benesse Art Site Naoshima by architect Tadao Ando. This museum will mainly exhibit and collect works by artists from across Asia, including Japan, and undertake various initiatives such as public programming and exhibitions with partial updates happening at irregular intervals. In doing so, the museum aims to communicate increasingly diverse perspectives, expressions, and equivocal messages within our times and society, seeking to be a place where visitors can come back again and again to experience cultural exchanges with people from the islands as well as outside.
Exhibition
The 2025 exhibition, celebrating the opening year, will feature large-scale installations of new and iconic works specificaly as site-specific for this location by 12 prominent and emerging artists (or groups) from across Asia, including Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. The works will be displayed throughout the building's four gallery spaces, spanning approximately 1,500 square meters across two basement floors and one ground floor, as well as the café area and outdoor spaces.
