Isamu Noguchi - Sculptural Design. Engl. Ausg. [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

With his overarching interest in sculptural design, sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) not only created sculptures, but also stage-sets, lamps, furniture, gardens and public spaces. In collaboration with the Isamu Noguchi Foundation, New York, the Vitra Design Museum is launching the first major European solo exhibition on his work - designed by Robert Wilson. The traveling exhibition currently on display in the Design Museum London will be presented in Weil am Rhein from December 8, 2001 through April 21, 2002. Continuing from there the show will make five more stops: at the Museo Nacional Centro d'Arte Reina Sofia, the Maison de la Culture du Japon, the Kunsthal Rotterdam, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Cologne, and the Vitra Design Museum in Berlin. A 320-page catalogue accompanies the show. There is a German and English version - each containing around 160 illustrations of which 80 are colored. Seven authors contribute articles on Noguchi's work and biography, revealing numerous new aspects of the latter's oeuvre even to experts. An essay by Noguchi himself published for the first time, as well as an eulogy by his mentor R. Buckminster Fuller (1960) round out the picture. Robert Wilson's unusual presentation of the show is documented by a separate photo series. In his accompanying essay, the internationally active director and choreographer illuminates his highly personal interest in Noguchi's border-crossing work. Thanks to an illustrated biography and an index, the catalogue ultimately makes an ideal reference work. Armed with a Guggenheim scholarship Noguchi traveled to Paris in 1927 where he worked for six months in the studio of Constantin Brancusi. It was a formative experience for a 23-year old whose consequences Anna C. Chave first examines more closely in her essay. In the process, the expert on Brancusi encounters fascinating connections in the biographies of the two artists, as well as amazing formal and conceptual parallels in their works. But Chave also shows how Noguchi succeeded in freeing himself from the route taken by his role model, and finding his own personal style. After his return to Paris and a longer stay in Asia, Noguchi largely spent the 1930s in New York. Ingrid Schaffner and Donna Ghelerter focus on the time of the Great Depression during which the artist earned his living by making portrait busts of friends and wealthy patrons. This period is used by the two authors as a starting point to describe the fascinating creative and intellectual environment Noguchi moved in, and in which artists and designers engaged in lively exchange with one another. Such stimuli centered on the gallery of Julien Levy who in addition to showing Noguchi's works also exhibited those of artists such as Berenice Abbott, Frida Kahlo and Alexander Calder. Bruce Altshuler's essay deals with Noguchi's interiors as well as his product designs. Naturally, a central role is occupied by his furniture such as the Coffee Table or the Rocking Stool which he created in the 1940s and 1950s, and that were produced on a large scale by reputed firms such as Hermann Miller and Knoll. The authority on Noguchi also effectively traces the success story of the Akari lamps, placing the artist's product and interior design logically within the context of his overall artistic concept. At the latest after the completion of the UNESCO gardens in Paris 1956-58, landscape and public space design assumed ever greater importance in Noguchi's work. Kim explores this dialog with nature by way of several exemplary projects, directing his attention in particular to western and eastern influences that shaped the work of this traveler between two worlds. An additional striking aspect of Noguchi's work is the enormous diversity of materials he worked with, and which he was so skilled at forming: marble, granite, alabaster, bronze, clay, steel, aluminium, wood or earth. Bert Winther-Tamaki not only undertakes an aesthetic analysis of these working materials, but performs an iconographic interpretation of them. In common with Kim, he is not least of all concerned about cultural references that Noguchi took up with his works in the United States, Europe and Japan. The personal review by Shoji Sadaos - the architect who helped to realize many of Noguchi's projects - afford interesting insights into the artist's way of thinking and working through the description of projects they tackled jointly. At the same time, the report by the current director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation in New York offers a penetrative, exemplary view of Noguchi's collaboration with architects. Two historical essays complement the contributions especially written for the catalog. In "Sculpture as Invention", Noguchi also has his say, and provides a review of his work as a designer which he understands as an integral part of his sculptural work. Noguchi enjoyed a long friendship with engineer and visionary R. Buckminster Fuller whose essay Noguchi featured in abbreviated form as the preface to his autobiography. The complete version reprinted in the catalogue documents the intensive intellectual exchange between the two non-conformists who shared the desire to enrich daily life through their work.

Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) is widely considered among the most important sculptors and designers of his day. His definition of sculpture was a broad one, and he therefore not only created sculptures, but also designed stage sets, luminaries, furniture and public spaces; effectively bridging the gap between fine and applied arts. This publication features an article on Noguchi's interiors and furniture, explores his relationship with Brancusi and the New York art world. The artist's landscape designs and Japanese and American influences are also examined. As well as a personal retrospective by Shoji Sadao, who worked wth Moguchi for many years, there is an homage by his close friend R. Buckminster Fuller and also an unpublished article by the artist himself.