I n s p ira tio n and a Vi s ual Feas t aw ai t vi si t or s t o A r t e Pi azza, Bi baiby
Hokkaido offers pleasant surprises to art lovers
and one of the finest sites to visit, Arte Piazza, Bibai,
is barely an hour from the island’s administrative
capital and gateway city of Sapporo. Once a thriving
mining town, Bibai languished, but it is now
renowned for its extraordinary pioneering vision of
combining art with nature. Through the spectacular
sculptures of Kan Yasuda situated in the beautiful
parkland of the Art Plaza, visitors may investigate
their own inner and outer spaces, they can admire,wander, moreover they may touch and feel the art,and relish freely in the landscape. This project istruly inspirational, inviting guests to explore theirown feelings in a very special environment.
Exit the highway from Sapporo and turn east, andyou will find that narrow route 135 winds gently into
forested hills by way of a lush valley. The rice fieldsof the Ishikari plain are now but a memory andahead the valley seems to narrow towards nowherein particular. Then, suddenly, on the right of the roada modest sign announces Arte Piazza Bibai. It seems
an odd setting for an Italian sign, but beyond it adelightfully old-fashioned and well-maintained
traditional wooden school building appears inbeautifully kept park-like grounds, just begging for
picnickers to descend on its grass lawns and park
benches, for young lovers to stroll around
distractedly, for families to play, and for snow lovers
to romp in deep winter powder. That this attraction isfree is astonishing, because this perfect picnic venue
is just the first layer of the onion; that it is open
24-hours a day and year round is nothing short ofamazing. This is truly accessible inspirational arte.
Enter the park and peel back the next layer of thepiazza, for this is a site with hidden treasures. Climb
the little raised knoll to your right and there you willfind nestling in its top a sunken outdoor auditorium
at the centre of which stands a great marble shape,smoothly surfaced, sensuously rounded, and gently
curving as if begging to be stroked, or even caressed.
This is just the first of many astonishing pieces
scattered intriguingly around the grounds. As witheach of the other pieces, that slowly reveal
themselves as one wanders the 17-acre park andalong woodland trails, this one is not labelled.

Mark Brazil

Nameless, it invites silent contemplation. Lift yourline of sight from the hollow where this piece sits
and enjoy the rounded, wooded hills beyond and bereminded that the siting and setting of each piece
invites not only admiration for Kan Yasuda’s work,
but also for the great work beyond – Nature. Wander
uphill towards the woodland and trace the course ofa short, broad stream that emerges and disappears
miraculously. Here stand Celestial Appreciation andCelestial Purification but for the many children whovisit it is the water between that invites play,splashes, chuckles and laughter. Further on, trails
into woodland and clearings offer sudden vistas ofpieces standing amidst trees or open to the sky. One
large bronze nestling amidst conifers will always
represent to me a dragon’s egg, it seems timeless,waiting to hatch. My imagination runs riot. In winterthe site is magically transformed by deep snow
through which trails are groomed allowing access to
key areas. Deepening snow steadily transforms thepieces, then as spring approaches and snow begins toretreat they slowly emerge suggesting a miraculous

rebirth, it is hard not to expect them to sprout anew
and grow fresh spring-like forms.
Viewing these grand sculptures in an outdoor
setting, I find myself thinking not so much of theartist, nor of what his creations might represent tohim, but of the delightful juxtaposition of creative art
and their surroundings, the evolving, natural beautyof the shifting seasons. That some of the pieces
resemble the heavy wave-washed granite boulders Iwas tempted to carry home from the beaches ofOkushiri Island, or the river boulders water-polishedin the mountain streams that form the headwaters of
the Ishikari River, may merely be coincidental, butlike those boulders they are intensely tactile, textured
and inviting touch, encouraging one to sit on them,to pause and reflect on their natural surroundings,
even to recline on them and sky-gaze; what is more,
there is a wonderfully harmonious relationshipbetween the unchanging solidity of the sculptures
and the ephemeral seasonal nature of theirsurroundings.
Separate megalithic studies in white marble andblack bronze are the trademark of Bibai-born
artist/sculptor Kan Yasuda, but though local andrural in his origins, his monumental sculptures now
appear on permanent display internationally as far
afield as Australia, USA, Spain’s Canary Islands,
Italy and the UK, and regularly in exhibitions suchas Touching Time that is currently being held atChristie’s New York. In Japan he is of course
well-represented in Hokkaido, nowhere better ofcourse than at the Bibai collection, which wasopened in July 1992, but tantalizing individual
pieces are on display across the country in: Tokyo,
Yokohama, Hitachi, Kawaguchi, Sakata, Shirakawa,
Niigata, Karuizawa, Okazaki, Naoshima andMiyazaki. Names for his pieces crop up repeatedlyin catalogues; their names are the same, though theirforms differ from location to location, and they seem
named as if to entice imagination, reflection andfocus on the scene and the setting more than todescribe the sculpted entity. Thus Shape of Mind,
Key to a Dream, The Echoes, Interspace, Dragon,
Secret of the Sky, Celestial Appreciation andCelestial Purification are ciphers, but with no set key
to unlock their codes. They alternate; some are
massive, modern, geometric and powerful in form,
while others seem essentially feminine, gentle andcurving.

Strolling through the Arte Piazza Bibai, one
encounters pathways leading to sculptures withinwoodland, in open spaces of green sward, within thesports gymnasium of the school where children love
to climb on them and explore them by touch, while
outside dark bronze shapes warm in the sunshine
inviting one to recline and sky gaze, revelling in thewarmth, imagining shapes in the clouds by daylightand contemplating the mysteries of the star-studded
sky by night. In winter the marbles are shrouded inprotected covers, while the bronzes are softened bysnowy capes and deep snow surrounding them; thewhole scene takes on a strange, crystal desert
appearance – art shrouded by nature.
Antonio Paolucci, former head of the Artistic andCultural Endowments’ Office, and now Director of
the Vatican Museums, Italy, wrote of Kan Yasuda
that only two words are necessary to define hisartistic aesthetic: minimalism, and animism. I agreeand further feel that in experiencing his pieces in the“flesh” (so-to-speak), the philosophical and religious
aspects of Yasuda’s work speak loudly. They appear
as if some minimalist haiku had been transcribed inmarble or bronze. Their presence seems to create
solitude and sacred space around them, just as arevered rock or a totemic tree in the pantheon of
Shinto animistic sacred sites is marked by ringing itwith a plaited straw Shimenawa, or just as the Ainu
mark their sacred animistic sites and send offeringsand messages to the gods with sacred carved Inau.
Kan’s art somehow draws in the surrounding
landscape, and it entices in people, so that it feels
natural to explore the intimate views seen throughhis structures and keyholes, to sit awhile atop asun-warmed sculpture, or to pose within theirframes.
Born in rural Hokkaido in 1945, Kan received amaster’s degree in sculpture from Tokyo National
University of Fine Arts and Music in 1969.
Following a visit to Italy on a fellowship in 1970, hemade his studio-home at Pietrasanta in the northernpart of Tuscany, in the province of Lucca, close tothe source of arguably the finest of all marble. Yet,the culmination of his life’s work is to be in Bibai.
Art critic Shibahashi Tomoo described Arte Piazza
Bibai as “A Place to Find Inner Peace”, and wrote ofit that: “…this art square, which the sculptor, Yasuda
Kan, is determined to make the consummation of hislife’s work, does not belong to the city of Bibai
alone, but reaches beyond all national boundaries totransmit its message to the world…”
Now one of Japan’s preeminent contemporary
sculptors, Kan’s works here inspire the modernvisitor, but hint at the region’s past and its previous
dependence on coal. With the closure of the twomain mines in 1963 and 1973 decline and depression
came to this once booming town, its mining
community drained away to other areas of Japan, buteven before the closures, the area was tinged withmourning for lost miners. As the population
haemorrhaged, the sounds of playing children faded
from the Bibai landscape and their erstwhile schools
closed their doors. Sakae Elementary School was
one of those scheduled for demolition, but its
nostalgia-inducing brown wooden structure and its
gymnasium were saved and new life was breathedinto them with the placement of Yasuda’s abstract
sculptures within and around them.
In his dark bronzes I see echoes of the past,mourning for lost miners, for the town’s lostchildren, indications of the pall of coal dust thatmust have pervaded the atmosphere of the area, but
in the whiteness of the Italian marble pieces I see thebeautiful pristine draping of winter snows bringing
beauty to an industrial landscape. The setting here isso surrounded by nature that seasonal colours makerepeated visits enticing, to see the pieces offset
against a blue summer sky, against the vibrantoranges and reds of autumn, the fresh greens ofspring, the deep lush greens of summer, and theircontours further softened by a fresh coating of
powder snow.
While many pieces invite tactile perception, which
engenders joy in children and tears sometimes inadults, other pieces suggest immersion or long-rangeviewing. The water aspects of the Arte Piazza are, in
my limited experience, unique. Here there are no
showy symmetrical fountains suggestive ofengineering and artifice that one might find in a
grand European-style garden, there are no
Zen-induced representations of natural pond andstream perfection, as one might find in a small
temple garden or grand strolling garden in Japan,
instead there are invitations. A shallow pool, flooredwith white marble rocks, invites splashing andpaddling. Or, when calm-surfaced, it invites
absorption in the reflection of the school, and thesky. The nearby stream, picked out in white marble
and well-seen through the frame on the hillside, is so
designed as to present a soundscape that changes
from the rushing, riffling of a mountain stream to thegentle chuckles of a lowland brook and the quiet
murmurs of a pond, as one walks beside it. Like thethree great strolling gardens of Japan, Kenroku-en,Kairoku-en and Koraku-en, Arte Piazza Bibai invites
strolling; unlike those controlled strolling
environments however, Kan’s legacy in Bibai invites
unfettered wanderings, literally and imaginatively.

How to reach Arte Piazza Bibai:
From Sapporo, Bibai Station can be reached by train
in 40 minutes, and from there it is just 15 minutes bybus or taxi to the Arte Piazza. By car, take the
Hokkaido Expressway getting off at Bibai IC, from
where Arte Piazza is just five minutes away. The site
is mostly outdoors, but has two indoor areas (in theschool and the gymnasium), a small shop, and abeautifully placed coffee shop offering views to thegrounds and several sculptures over a relaxing tea orcoffee. Opening times of the indoor facilities arelimited, so best to check ahead if the weather
promises to be unkind.
And if visiting in person isn’t a practical option, thentake a virtual stroll through the grounds of the plazaby visiting the excellent website: http://www.artepiazza.jp
OutroMark Brazil is a British writer, photographer andeco-tourism consultant based in Ebetsu, Hokkaido.
You can find out more at: www.japannatureguides.com
Translator Yuko Kurosawa