Isamu Noguchi – Sculptural Design
In
collaboration with Robert Wilson
Jul. 1999 - May 2006, Traveling exhibition for the Vitra Design Museum in conjunction with the Isamu Noguchi Foundation
Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles (2006), Seattle Art Museum, Seattle (2005), Isamu Noguchi Foundation, New York (2004), Kunsthal, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2003), MART, Trento, Italy (2003), Maison de la Culture du Japon, Paris, France (2002), Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain (2002), Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany (2001/02), and Design Museum, London, U.K (2001).
This exhibition surveyed all the aspects of Isamu Noguchi’s interdisciplinary ouevre, spanning from his stage sets, to his stone, wood and metal sculptures, to furniture and lamp designs and his landscape architecture for parks and fountains. It was arranged as a dramatic tour through four staged rooms. The use of sound, diverse display materials and colors created a different atmospheric quality in each room. While the first room was fairly dark and quiet with carefully lit objects, stage designs and video monitors of the Martha Graham Dance Company the mood of the second room was more playful and light showing primarily Noguchi’s best-known Akari paper lamps and light sculptures. In the third room we presented mostly stone sculptures and models of park designs in a Japanese garden-like setting. Visitors discovered the pieces by walking on a path of concrete pavers that led through a field of gravel. We also designed a real waterfall with an architectural model in front and a monitor behind it showing the fountain of the Philip A. Hart Plaza in Detroit. The last room possessed an airy quality. All objects were either suspended or stationed on aluminum pedestals that matched the material of the floor.
Curated by Katarina V. Posch