Japanese sentō are traditional communal bathhouses that have seen an unlikely resurgence in recent times, now, thanks to the Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation and artist Shinro Ohtake, the humble sentō is taken one step further and transformed into a public art space. The Naoshima Public Bath ““I♥Yu” (the Japanese for ‘hot water’ is pronounced ‘Yu’) is a unique art/community project that, as you’ll see, looks sensationally kitsch in it’s exterior and becomes even more brilliantly bizarre as you enter the space (images of which we were unfortunately not granted access to use) thanks to it’s peculiar collection of Japanese artifacts that include an aircraft cockpit, the bottom of a ship and even a small elephant statue from an erotic museum, we kid you not. It really has to be seen to be believed, so head over to their website and download the ‘photo index’ from the ‘Inquiries’ link at the top, you’ll not fail to be amazed by the exotic surrealism of this one-of-a-kind art masterpiece….
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