Image: Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima
Benesse Art Site Naoshima has published an account of the making of James Turrell’s 'Backside of the Moon' (1999), the permanent work installed in the Minami-dera House Project on Naoshima Island. The article focuses on the production process behind the piece, framing it as an example of Turrell’s effort to move beyond physical measurement and shape a sensory experience through light, space and perception.
According to the site’s archival blog entry, the Minami-dera House Project was opened in the Honmura district of Naoshima in April 1999. The building was designed by Tadao Ando to suit the scale of Turrell’s work, with the architecture closely tied to the surrounding environment and the character of the site. Visitors approach along a long passage beside the burnt cedar exterior and old earthen walls before entering the work through a dark corridor.
The article describes the viewing experience as one in which visitors move by touch through near-total darkness until, after waiting in the black interior, a faint light appears. That sequence is central to the work’s premise: Turrell aimed to give tangible form to light itself, and the space was constructed to support that aim rather than simply house an object.
The article also notes that the work’s realization was not straightforward. Although the construction period ran for about two months, Turrell visited Japan before the public opening and repeatedly requested revisions to the interior space. He was satisfied with the architecture, but the article says he returned several times to the interior, adjusting details that affected how the space was perceived.
One focus of the account is lighting. During the artist’s visit, the team says Turrell did not pay attention to the room’s dimensions when he stepped inside; instead, he adjusted the illumination. The article quotes site representative Ikumi Toyoda, then of Kajima Corporation and now representative of ARTISAN LLC, recalling repeated instructions to make the room darker and darker. She said the team eventually reached the limits of their dimmer, and even replaced it when the light had been reduced to the point of disappearing. Toyoda said the changes were too subtle for her to notice, but that Turrell clearly perceived the differences.
The revisions extended beyond brightness to the position of lights and the treatment of edges on the interior walls. The construction team, the article says, kept reworking the space while not fully knowing the completed form Turrell was pursuing. Toyoda reflects that the issue was not size or shape in a conventional sense, but how light emerges and flows through space. In her view, Turrell was reading that flow rather than measuring objects, and the artist’s refusal to compromise on the intensity of light and the way it fills the room is what gives the visitor’s first moment in the space its force.
Benesse Art Site Naoshima presents the encounter with Turrell as a formative experience for its own approach to production, emphasizing the artist’s precision and the idea of the whole space as the work. The blog post was published on June 6, 2022, as part of the site’s ‘From the Archive’ series on works from its history on Naoshima.
