"Two-Day Trip" Enjoy art, nature, and food! Driving Course for New and Masterpieces
This is a driving course that will take you around the entire Echigo-Tsumari region while visiting artworks. The course is full of old houses, abandoned schools, and famous spots in Echigo-Tsumari. Enjoy the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2024 with all your senses while taking in the magnificent nature, a total of 311 artworks including new artworks and masterpieces, and seasonal cuisine! After admiring the artworks, let the daily fatigue drop away in the hot spring resort town of Matsunoyama.
*This is a driving course, but you can also use the Shinkansen bullet train to Echigo-Yuzawa Station and rent a car to get around. Please take a look at our travel suggestions.
*This is a driving course, but you can also use the Shinkansen bullet train to Echigo-Yuzawa Station and rent a car to get around. Please take a look at our travel suggestions.
10:00
[DAY 1]From Tokamachi Station*Rent a car
30 min.
10:30
Seasonal cuisine from Echigo-Tsumari to enjoy surrounded by artworks
[New]Matsudai "NOHBUTAI" Field Museum
The entire building and rooms of the NOHBUTAI are artwork! You can view various artworks, mainly the artworks of Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, and the "The Rice Fields" seen from the observation deck change their appearance with the seasons. A variety of Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale goods are available at the museum shop.
[Lunch]Echigo-Matsudai Satoyama Shokudo
Enjoy a 60-minute buffet during the Echigo-Tsumari Art Trienniale. A variety of delicacies with local flavors and home-style dishes arranged with plenty of wild vegetables nurtured by the living nature of Echigo-Tsumari will be served. Taste the seasonal ingredients of Echigo-Tsumari.
20 min.
13:00
Echigo-Tsumari's representative landscape in an old house that became an artwork.
Kurakake Junichi + Nihon University College of Art Sculpture Course"Shedding House"
The walls, floors, pillars, and other parts of the house were carved with a carving knife to reveal a new aspect of the house. The space, which took about two years to complete with the cooperation of a total of 3,000 people, envelops the viewer with overwhelming power. The artwork allows you stay in a space that evokes a sense of history, the powerful appearance of a private house, the quiet night, the clear morning air, the beautiful terraced rice fields, and the time that flows in a farming village.
[New]Kabata Chihiro + Yuuri"Snow unknown to the sky"
This installation uses the motif of snow and people's lives, which is symbolized by "snow falling into the sky. The artist, who had experienced heavy snowfalls, said, "The snowplow that people operate looks like a device that returns snow to the sky," and the work expresses a story of snow swirling and scattering from an object resembling the blade of a snowplow, and then being returned to people's lives.
Hoshitouge Terraced Rice Field
In the village of Toge, where "Shedding House" is located, there are "Hoshitouge Terraced Rice Fields" that offer different scenery depending on the time of day and the changes of the seasons. The terraced rice fields are "rain-fed" and require a lot of manual labor, but the resulting rice is exceptionally delicious. 3-meter-high snowfall, temperature differences between day and night, and melted snow soaking into the mountains nurture the best rice.
10 min.
14:00
Reclaimed old house with German and Japanese architectural styles
Old house Cafe "Yellow House"
Around the "Hoshitouge Terraced Rice Field," there are several reclaimed old private houses by German architectural designer Carl Bencks. We recommend taking a break at "Yellow House," a warm old house café in Takedokoro village. *Please check official Instagram (cafe "Yellow House") for business day.
25 min.
15:30
Matsunoyama Onsen Street
Matsunoyama Onsen Street
Three artworks can be seen in the hot spring resort of Matsunoyama. The giant "Osborne's Bull" appears in the Echigo-Tsumari landscape. This artwork tells us the beginning of the hot spring resort with its light. Please enjoy viewing the artworks while strolling around Matsunoyama Onsen Street, including a project that captures the form of ecological change of the plants that self-regulate in Matsunoyama and composes a flora unique to the area.
[Dinner]Matsunoyama Onsen
After viewing the artworks of the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2024 and enjoying the natural beauty of Echigo-Tsumari, take a hot spring bath to remove your daily fatigue. You can enjoy a wide variety of meals using Tsunan pork and other local ingredients, as well as a wide variety of dry, locally brewed sake.
10 min.
10:00
[DAY 2]The masterpieces of world-class artists
Christian Boltanski＋Jean Kalman ”The Last Class”
In 2006, the year of record snowfall, the artist visited this closed school and created a work that densely encapsulates the memory of the place inside the building. The objects related to the community and the school, collected from the residents of the village, are quietly placed in a small space at the far end of the building from the entrance.
10 min.
11:00
Art confronting the grandeur of the Shinano River
[New]Nikita Kadan”The Objects from Another Place”
This is an object work by an artist who has participated in many international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale, and who is a leading figure in the Ukrainian contemporary art scene. This work, made of mirror-finished metal, is an "inaccessible park" that can only be seen from a distance. It is an inaccessible and happy space, but at the same time, it is a place that reminds us of our childhood days gone by.
10 min.
11:20
An artwork along the Shinano River
Olu Oguibe"The Longest River"
The poem by high school students living in the Shinano River basin in Nagano and Niigata prefectures, inscribed on 18 utility poles, was selected by the public on the theme of "river memory" in light of the current state of the river, which has lost its water volume due to power generation.
Hong Sung-Do”Growing Tree in Tsumari”
The tree, suspended by its entire planter on the support of four steel poles, suggests the situation of people who live their lives cut off from nature. If the tree cut off from the earth looks odd, it may be our lives.
20 min.
11:00
Visit Echigo-Tsumari's leading art museum
[New]Museum on Echigo-Tsumari, MonET
This is the base facility for the "Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale" featuring artworks by prominent contemporary artists such as Nawa Kohei, Nakatani Michiko, and [mé]. The corridor and courtyard will be used as a front for special exhibitions and works by up-and-coming Ukrainian artists. At night, the works are illuminated, immersing visitors in a serene worldview that differs from that of the day.
[Lunch]TSUMARI BURGER
An open space supervised by MUJI is located on the first floor corridor of the Museum on Echigo-Tsumari, MonET. Enjoy a burger made with "pulled pork," which is a chunk of Echigo-Tsumari pork that has been slow-cooked until it is tender and tender, and then loosened into small pieces, available only during the exhibition period.
10 min.
14:30
Sasayama Koryu shrine
[New]Antony Gormley”MAN ROCK Ⅴ”
This is a new work in a series that has continued since 1979 by an artist widely known for sculptures based on the theme of the relationship between space and the human body. The works are placed among trees, mountain grasses, and stones, and eventually return to nature. Those with time to spare are invited to view the work of one of the leading British sculptors of our time, along with "Another Singularity," a permanent work in the Tokamachi area.
[New]Kageyama Ken”HERE—UPON YORISHIRO”
The artist, who focuses on the characteristics of art that can only be realized in a particular place, will create artwork on a young cedar tree in a shrine with a long history. This will be an attempt to create a work of art that observes the growth of a young cedar tree in the year when corona was spreading around the world.
15 min.
15:00
Arrive at Tokamachi Station*Return a rental car
Summary
| Dates | Saturday, 13 July, 2024-Sunday, 10 November (Facility closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays) |
|---|---|
| Origin / Destination | Tokamachi Station |
| Transportation | Rental car |
Recommended Tours / Itineraries
Contact us for consultation on group tours or travel agency original plans.
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