The Shikoku port city of Takamatsu is often the jumping-off point for the smaller art-laden islands of Naoshima, Teshima and others. Yet Kagawa’s prefectural capital and the rustic castle town of Marugame, less than an hour west, possess longer histories of modern art and culture that make them destinations in their own right.
Between these cities lies Mount Washinoyama, a 322-meter-tall peak located about half an hour west of Takamatsu proper. Painter and sculptor Yutaka Sono claims the peculiarly conical summit — my guide speaks of the local mountains as “rice ball-like” — as his base of production and source of materials. In 2024, he produced a miniature model of the mountain and a statue of a snow leopard out of tuff stone from a decommissioned quarry there.
The scenery toward town strikes me as orderly but sedate until we reach the heart of Marugame, where just across from the station you’ll find the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art (MIMOCA). It’s a bastion of contemporary beauty: Before its entrance, bright red and yellow columns extend skyward and zigzag before a marble mural — nearly 12 meters high and over 20 meters wide — filled with childlike, black and white sketches of animals and vehicles. This illustration in stone is further punctuated by a giant nautilus sculpture, posted before it like a sentry.
