Otsuka Bijutsukan

[Peter Grilli]

To:  Markus Nornes:

Thank you, very much, for your fascinating report on the Otsuka Bijutsukan.  I
haven't been there, but have long been curious about it.  I've heard
descriptions from various friends  (including museum people whose  works are
included in the Otsuka collection), but none of them made any sense.  Your
description in the first that gave me a sense of what the museum is like.

A few questions:
How big are the spaces?  When you say "life-size" do you really mean actual
facsimile size?  Even the Sistine Chapel?  If everything really is exact
facsimile size, the place must be HUGE!  About how many paintings are there?
Hundreds?  Thousands?  How many buildings are there?  Who designed them?  What
do the exteriors look like?  Are they just factory-like buildings, or are they
beautiful?

Is the "Tomato Dome" near the Otsuka Bijutsukan?  It's where Otsuka bio-chemists
cultivate huge tomato plants under absolutely perfect growing conditions.  I've
seen a film about this, which was fascinating, and can hardly believe the
immense size of the tomato plants they produce.

Can you send the address and contact numbers of the Otsuka Bijutsukan?  I don't
want to miss this on my next trip to Shikoku!

Thanks again for the information.

Peter Grilli




Abe' Mark Nornes wrote:

> I went to the Otsuka Bijutsukan, and it was one of those amazing
> only-in-Japan experiences.
>
> Otsuka Corporation---which is into everything you can imagine---wanted an
> art museum next to its headquarters in Naruto, several hundred meters from
> the dock where busloads of tourists turn into boatloads of tourists checking
> out the whirlpools in the Straights. The museum itself is the largest
> permanent space in Japan, and it's as expansive as major galleries in the US
> and Europe. Of course, they had the problem that all these new art museums
> in Japan have. They own no art! But they got around this problem by using a
> new reproduction technology that they had invented. It's a kind of
> large-scale photograph on ceramic plates, and the quality of the
> reproduction is extremely high. Even a few inches away from the image you
> don't see the kinds of patterns you get in most color prints, so I assume it
> must be a kind of optical photography. What they did was team up with art
> museums around the world and copy their best works of art, in precisely the
> same size as the original. Yes, it's a major museum filled with nothing but
> fakes!
>
> They are displaying the master works by every major artist in the history of
> art. Never seen the Mona Lisa? It's there...in the same room as the Last
> Supper. Rembrandt? They've got about ten of his best, plus a representative
> sample of the most important art from each period in history. I actually
> enjoyed seeing Las Meninas "for the first time." However, I have to admit
> they didn't have all the Vermeers in the world....at least New York. The
> artist who got the most attention by far was Picasso, who even got his
> _actual_ photograph displayed next to Guernica. All the other artists simply
> got labels as in any other art museum.
>
> The other interesting thing about this technology is that it's more
> malleable than a photograph. Because the base is ceramic, it can be molded
> and integrated into architecture. That means that they could reproduce
> artistic _spaces_. For example, they reproduce tombs and early grotto
> churches down to the texture of the stone and the areas where the wall
> paintings have flaked away. My favorite, however, was the life-size
> rendition of the Sistine Chapel. I tell no lie. It's the first thing you
> walk into. Except they've only included the Final Judgement and the strip on
> the ceiling. Haven't gotten to the other walls, obviously.
>
> Of course, there's no aura. For most of us. However, my sister-in-law---who
> has been to Tokyo...once---provides a hint at what's going on in the minds
> of many of the people who shell out a steep 3,500 yen to look at a warehouse
> full of fakes. She was clearly sent into a kind of rapture by the Sistine
> Chapel. She was bored by the Greeks and Romans, and most of the other
> Vatican and royal propaganda up to the 16th century. But one she worked her
> way into the Rennaisance and early modernists she was back in heaven. The
> place is so huge that she didn't make it to the 20th century before wearing
> out, which is too bad since I thought the technology lent itself quite well
> to people like Warhol and Lichtenstein. I mostly enjoyed watching the people
> marvelling at the "art." Also being able to walk on the Greek floor mosaics.
>
> Oh, by the way, if you didn't know already, there's no art outside of Europe
> and New York City. I guess that's not exactly true. They had one modern
> Japanese painting. In the cafeteria.
>
> Oh, and another thing: this ceramic stuff was originally for an Otsuka
> venture that apparently failed, although they don't tell you this at the
> museum (I heard it from a glass blower friend in Tokushima). It was supposed
> to be for reproducing images of loved ones on gravestones! But this didn't
> go over well in Japan...no aura, I guess.
>
> Markus