Today we travel from Naoshima to Takamatsu (on the mainland).

The Noguchi Museum is here and since we both admire his work, it made sense to visit it.

The museum isn’t really a museum per se.

It’s a series of buildings consisting of Noguchi’s workspace (a big outdoor “studio” where he sculpted in stone), his house, and a sculpted sculpture garden.

I have no photos because photography isn’t allowed.

The best I can offer is one of the gift shop – in and of itself, a beautiful building.

The entire ‘museum’ is meticulously maintained and very tranquil.

A large yard encircled by a craggy rock wall was once his workspace. All his tools remain in his tool house untouched since his death in 1988.

Many of his pieces are in this area and in what used to be his workshop.

Coarse sand covers the entire yard and workshop. It’s carefully swept with a twig broom which leaves beautiful striations in the sand.

We pay 2000¥ per person- about $14 USD – for the tour.

A fair price – if the museum made accommodations for visitors who speak languages other than Japanese.

A guide begins the tour – in Japanese. I assume that at some point, they would switch to English or Korean – or some other language. But no! Just Japanese – even though more than half the group is made up of non-Japanese speakers.

Soon, a harried looking woman runs up and taps me on the arm.

“English?”

I nod.

She pulls me aside. Then my partner. Then she runs around the group – bobbing and weaving – seeking out non-Japanese looking faces. She gathers this group together and gives the information in English.

We all look grateful.

In the middle of the tour, when the Japanese guide begins the second part, I look around for our guide but she’s disappeared.

Oh well!

We amble over to Noguchi’s house. His house cannot be entered into but can be viewed from the outside.

I assume that like myself, all the other non-Japanese speakers will peek in through the doors and windows and walk on. But suddenly she pops up again, dispensing another impromptu explanation about his home.

Here I learn that his house was taken apart and transported from somewhere else and that he spent only spring and fall here in Takamatsu.

Here are my thoughts about this experience.

With technology being what it is today, this kind of language barrier shouldn’t happen. With language specific QR Codes, an explanation could pop up on visitors’ smartphones – audio or visual.

Why has this museum, dedicated to one of the most influential artists and designers of the 20th century, chosen to do things this way?

Some years ago I watched the movie called Leonie, (2010) which details the life of Isamu Noguchi’s mother and a young Noguchi.

The movie depicts how horribly Noguchi’s father treated Isamu’s mother and how little he cared about his son.

By most accounts when he was younger, Noguchi wasn’t readily accepted in Japan; he wasn’t 100% Japanese. He wasn’t Japanese by birth and added to which, his mother was American. He came here to Japan when he was two or three and went back to the US to attend high school.

Given that this tour is presented entirely in Japanese is it that the Japanese are now claiming Noguchi as their own or making (posthumous) amends to someone they once did not accept?
Or is it simply just poor planning on the museum’s part? Or bad timing on ours?

I leave that to you.

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