Tadanori Yokoo, bad boy of the Japanese art scene since the 1960s, is showing nine works, most of which were made within the last couple of years, at Scai The Bathhouse in the Yanaka district of Tokyo. The small exhibition, titled "Destination the Teshima Art House Project" serves to not only showcase these specific works but to also introduce plans for a new museum on the island of Teshima in the Seto Inland Sea of Kagawa Prefecture. The museum will be part of Benesse Art Site Naoshima, which is centered on the bigger island in the area, and will host a permanent exhibition of some of Yokoo's works from spring next year.
A more modest enterprise than some of the large scale art venues also housed under the Benesse Art Site, the new museum (tentatively named the Teshima Art House) reflects the concept of "Living Well is Dying Well," and it aims to redirect our thoughts on mortality in a more positive direction — to consider death not as a negative terminus to life but as a companion, forever present during our existence.
Architect Yuko Nagayama's design for the museum reflects this through the inclusion of a small waterway — symbolic of the Sanzu River, the river the dead must cross on their way to the afterlife in Buddhist lore — running through the middle of the building.
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