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Drawing a perfect circle in one continuous line was a sign
of mastery. Rembrandt did it in one of his latest self-portraits.
Noguchi however, did the opposite. Read what he wrote
about Sun a Noon.
The assembly technique, no doubt with industrial help, is related
to Noguchi's activity as a designer. Some of his furniture, like
his famous glass coffee table and his paper lanterns, are still in production and very popular.
The airplane has changed our perception of the world. Our connection and intervention with nature are best seen from above. Humans hardly touch the mountain peaks. They settle in river dales and grassy flats. They always design a grid, bordered by roads.
This birds-eye view had a tremendous effect on art in the twentieth century. How could it not? With this piece of granite Isamu Noguchi stressed our bond with nature. Talking about 'Another Land' he said: "When I refer to it as land sculpture, this is what I mean — water flow, nature’s passage."
He put this sculpture on the floor, in direct contact with the earth. When we circle around it, it changes. Light becomes dark, shallow becomes deep. Coming from the east or from the west makes a difference...
The Storm King Mountain, overlooking the Hudson River, gave its name to a landscaped sculpture garden that started in 1960. Many well-known artists of that era picked a spot to create work for it.
Isamu Noguchi went even further: he asked for a complete new hill. On top of this elevation, with views all around, he placed a large stone 'ensemble', named Momo Taro. The name refers to an ancient folktale about an elderly couple that - no doubt to everybody's surprise - still got a son. As the tale wants it, he emerged from a peach pit. The round stone - a colossal boulder that had to be split and hollowed out because it was too big to ship from Japan - reminded Noguchi of a giant peach, ready to consume. Visitors, especially children, are invited to enter the cavity and sing a song. The hollow shape resonates beautifully.
Landscaping is an integral part of Isamu Noguchi's oeuvre. He created several playgrounds and also made stage designs. It betrays an important aspect of his work: art is not only useful as an object of meditation or as an expensive luxury. Art should enrich daily life. Art and play are like brother and sister.
Isamu Noguchi remodelled an old factory to create a museum for his own work. It's a hidden gem. Few tourists take the bus into Queens to get there, but it is a quiet oasis for New Yorkers that seek the bridge between nature and culture. The museum reflects the Japanese-American background of Noguchi. Let me introduce his ideas in a small series.
Isamu Noguchi respected nature. He could choose a piece of stone and communicate with it as we do with human beings. What do I see inside you? What do you want from me? How can I 'liberate' your potential?
Noguchi always sought a balance between nature and culture. Sometimes crude interventions with powerful tools were enough to turn a rough boulder into a cracking sculpture.
In the tranquil garden of the Noguchi Museum, art is shown in relation to nature. The sculptures beckon us as landmarks on a walk. Arriving at the spot they can be contemplated for some time while sitting on a bench. Leaving them behind in the embrace of evergreens is like a sweet goodbye.
It is not a classical Japanese rock garden with its nameless 'bones of the earth'. Sculptures are more outspoken as human interventions, but here Noguchi played with the same idea when he carefully placed an anonymous group around a landmark.
The white boulders are 'Practice Stones' of his apprentices. In the background rises his own 'Indian Dancer' like a mountain of stone.
Titles are not-done in abstract art. The dogma says that we should see for ourselves. The exploration of the unknown may be difficult without a clue and some background information, so museums usually provide text as well, but precise words narrow things down, while silent images are open to any connotation.
Isamu Noguchi was not hindered by this dogma. He gave his sculptures beautiful titles, poetic phrases like 'Night Wind' that open new vistas. A piece of black basalt, endlessly caressed by steel tools, rests on a wooden pedestal. We see traces of origin. The twists in stone and wood make it alive.
It reminds me of the Japanese 'Torii (gates to a holy place) and - perhaps quite the opposite - the sword of the samurai. Are those personal connotations in conflict with Noguchi's title? I don't think so. Our fingers cannot grasp the 'night wind', our eyes are unable to see it. Yet, it is real. We can hear the wind at night, we can feel it, we can dream it up in stone.
The weather here has been rainy and overcast but given the pleasant museums there's always something in which to delight in Luxembourg. My mind yesterday was turned to the Tropics by that tapestry of which I posted a photo; and the other day we enjoyed the Musée d'Art Moderne (MUDAM). It's situated on the Kirchberg and offers stunning views - even if gray now - of the spired city and the valley of the Alzette River.
The building itself, too, is worth a visit all on its own. But I was struck especially by a fine installation by Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) and Danh Võ (1975-), 'A Cloud and Flowers'. The lamps are Akari, constructed from the inner bark of mulberry trees and framed by bamboo. Noguchi and Võ here see light as illumination. The plants come into this as well, but I found them rather dessicated. Still the 'object' illuminated my dark, rainy thoughts.
Some sculptures of Isamu Noguchi could be 'Gongshi': naturally shaped stones that make us ponder the universe. They are placed on the bookshelves of scholars and in Buddhist gardens as objects of meditation.
Art has the same intention. A man-made sculpture is just a silent piece of stone if there is no interaction.
Volunteer Park
Seattle, Washington
A 1969 sculpture by Isamu Noguchi. The top of the Space Needle, erected for the 1962 Olympics in Seattle, can be seen through the opening in the disc.
Thanks for stopping by!
© Melissa Post 2024
The Storm King Mountain, overlooking the Hudson River, gave its name to a landscaped sculpture garden that started in 1960. Many well-known artists of that era picked a spot to create work for it.
Isamu Noguchi went even further: he asked for a complete new hill. On top of this elevation, with views all around, he placed a large stone 'ensemble', named Momo Taro. The name refers to an ancient folktale about an elderly couple that - no doubt to everybody surprise - still got a son. As the tale wants it, he emerged from a peach pit. The round stone - a colossal boulder that had to be split and hollowed out because it was too big to ship form Japan - reminded Noguchi of a giant peach, ready to consume. Visitors, especially children, are invited to enter the cavity and sing a song. The hollow shape resonates beautifully.
Landscaping is an integral part of Isamu Noguchi's oeuvre. He created several playgrounds and also made stage designs. It betrays an important aspect of his work: art is not only useful as an object of meditation or as an expensive luxury. Art should enrich daily life. Art and play are like brother and sister.
One of the Japanese new year preparations is extensive cleaning which is done at work as well as home before new year’s holiday, because it is important for Japanese people to welcome a new year with clean state.
Windows of the buildings shine most beautifully throughout the year and that is where I come to shoot.
Look-up shot from the entrance to Sogetsuryu school of flower arrangement located in Akasaka, Tokyo.
It’s not a perfect symmetry but geometric perspective in the urban space looks quite interesting.
Taken with Olympus E-M5 and M.Zuiko Digital ED 12mm F2.0
Setting: ISO 100 / 12.0 mm / f 8.0 / 0.4 sec.
At 140 Broadway in Lower Manhattan, Isamu Noguchi's Red Cube stands out prominently against the backdrop of the soaring Brown Brothers Harriman high rise. Halal carts are frequently parked nearby and adjacent buildings that house HSBC bank and the Bank of America flank the “cube” on its sides. Tonight was a foggy and rainy night and it gave it a different mood than usual.
To use a rock, it has to be 'freed' from the mountain. This starts in the quarry, where drilling holes can split stone at a precise place. Noguchi likes to direct this first step himself. Destruction is part of the creation.
In this sculpture, he shows the drilling marks as an elementary part of the process. Polishing only parts of the rough surface makes us deeper aware of our intervention with nature. Art is born in love and pain.
Mothership arrival.
Horace Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain
Isamu Noguchi - 1978-1981
ANR Building (One Woodward)
Minoru Yamasaki - 1962
Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) was a Japanese-American sculptor.
From the website:
Isamu Noguchi’s ultimate conception of sculpture was the manipulation of three empirical abstractions: the relationships that connect objects, spaces, and people; the sense of environment those connections produce when more than the sum of their parts; and the scaling of human awareness to such imaginary landscapes.
In 1985, Noguchi opened The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum (now known as The Noguchi Museum), in Long Island City, New York. The Museum, established and designed by the artist, marked the culmination of his commitment to public spaces. Located in a 1920s industrial building across the street from where the artist had established a studio in 1960, it has a serene outdoor sculpture garden, and many galleries that display Noguchi’s work, along with photographs, drawings, and models from his career. He also indicated that his studio in Mure, Japan, be preserved to inspire artists and scholars; a wish that was fulfilled with the opening of the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum Japan in 1999.
A reflection of the windows and interior of Galerie 56 in Anish Kapoor's sculpture. The gallery has Akari lamps by Isamu Noguchi currently on display.
Titles are not-done in abstract art. The dogma says that we should see for ourselves. The exploration of the unknown may be difficult without a clue and some or background information, so museums usually provide some text as well, but precise words narrow things down, while silent images are open to any connotation.
Isamu Noguchi was not hindered by this dogma. He gave his sculptures beautiful titles, poetic phrases like 'Night Wind' that open new vistas. A piece of black basalt, endlessly caressed by steel tools, rests on a wooden pedestal. We see traces of origin. The twists in the stone and the wood make it alive.
It reminds me of the Japanese 'Torii (gates to a holy place) and - perhaps quite the opposite - the sword of the samurai. Are those personal connotations in conflict with Noguchi's title? I don't think so. Our fingers cannot grasp the 'night wind', our eyes are unable to see it. Yet, it is real. We can hear the wind at night, we can feel it, we can dream it up in stone.
These carved stones come with interesting titles. They are (from left to right) Deepening Knowledge (1969), Human Sacrifice (1984), Brilliance (1982), and Venus (1980).
This stark setting seems less like a museum show space and more like a factory floor. Perhaps it's the trees and natural light in the corner but it tends to grow on you. These Noguchi sculptures seem right at home.
140 Broadway. The building accommodates the oldest and largest private bank in the United States.
Behind these windows money and politics could have tea...
Isamu Noguchi's sculpture Black Sun in the Japanese style garden on the grounds of Kykuit, a former Rockefeller estate.
"The essence of sculpture is for me the perception of space, the continuum of our existence." IsamuNoguchi
Isamu Noguchi designed Akari light sculptures from 1952-1986 and the artist FUTURA2000 hand painted the light designs in 2020. Noguchi created more than 200 models but with the possibilities of the various bases, shades and extension rods the variety is endless.
Noguchi Museum, Long Island City, Queens