nwasianweekly.com
June 18, 2005

Isamu Noguchi, who died in 1988, was born in Los Angeles to an American mother and a Japanese father. Here, he works on marble at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, circa 1960. (Photo provided by the Seattle Art Museum)

"Noguchi" not your typical art show

By Pat Tanumihardja
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

Be prepared to engage all your senses at Seattle Art Museum’s latest exhibition “Isamu Noguchi: Sculptural Design.”

Born of an American mother and a Japanese father, Noguchi (1903-1988) combined elements of East and West, sculpture and architectural design, to create the diverse works in his oeuvre. For this exhibition, theater director Robert Wilson has designed four unique installations to display Noguchi’s artistic creations, from stage elements to sculptures to furniture. The moment you step into the first space, it is clear that this is not your ordinary museum exhibition.

A dimly lit corridor is your introduction to the show. As your eyes adjust to the low lighting, your ears will pick up the soundtrack to choreographer Martha Graham’s dance piece “Errand Into the Maze” (1947). For more than 30 years, starting in 1935, Noguchi designed stage sets for Graham. Reduced to ambiguous shapes, the props made of wood and bronze are eerily illuminated against a backdrop of blackness. Video monitors show a continuous loop of live performances to give the original theatrical contexts.

The musky smell of cedar will lead you into the next room. With cedar chips on the floor set against a wall fitted with bales of hay, this space could not be more different from the former. In this living room of sorts, a kaleidoscope of elegant Akari lamps in all shapes and sizes hang from the ceiling and sit on the floor. These paper lanterns introduced the Noguchi sculptural form into homes worldwide and are popular even today. Tables, stools and benches in organic amorphous shapes are displayed not just on the floor but also on the walls.

In the next room, sculptures and models are displayed in a garden-like setting with Japanese koto music playing in the background. A footpath meanders around the gravel-covered room, leading you to a basalt “Garden Seat” (1963), “The Spirit’s Flight” (1969) — a marble and steel pylon twisting on its own axis — and “Water Table” (1968), a granite birdbath perhaps, filled with water.

Noguchi’s diverse oeuvre also included landscape architecture, particularly playgrounds. He saw them as sculptural landscapes. “I like to think of playgrounds as a primer of shapes and functions; simple, mysterious and evocative: thus educational. … The sculptural elements here have the added significance of usage,” he once wrote. Models of two playgrounds he designed, “Contoured Playground” (1941) and “Play Mountain” (1933) are juxtaposed with another variant of his sculptural design — a fountain maquette. A painted wood model of Detroit’s Horace E. Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain sits on a pedestal in front of a wall of water. Behind the sheet of running water, an illustration of how the fountain performs in real life, images of the original 8-meter-high steel structure flicker on and off. 

Step into the final space — a stark brightly lit room reminiscent of an industrial warehouse. “Symbol Screens,” made from Balsa wood, fabric and fishnet and composed of stage-set elements from Martha Graham’s dance piece “Judith” (1950), is hung on bare white walls. The shiny aluminum floor tiles provide the foundation for a motley collection of furniture in various materials — “Pierced Seat and Table” (1982) in galvanized steel, “Chess Table” (1944) in wood, aluminum and plastic, and “Rocking Stool” (1954) in wood and metal. Throughout his career, Noguchi sculpted close to 120 portrait heads. Among them were the likenesses of actress Ginger Rogers, Martha Graham and architect Ely Jacques Kahn. The small sample in this exhibition includes the heads of one of his longtime friends, futurist and inventor Buckminster Fuller in chrome-plated bronze (1929), and Tsuneko San (“Head of a Japanese Girl,” 1931).

Instead of detracting from Noguchi’s work, Wilson’s contrasts of space, light and color as well as his unexpected juxtapositions of media have created a complementary backdrop. Though challenging, if you keep your mind open, your curiosity piqued and your senses alert, “Isamu Noguchi: Sculptural Design” will give you unusual insight into the breadth and depth of this amazing artist’s lifework.

“Isamu Noguchi: Sculptural Design” runs through Sept. 5 at the Seattle Art Museum, 100 University St., Seattle. Cost is $7-$10. For more information, call 206-654-3100 or visit www.seattleartmuseum.org.

Pat Tanumihardja can be reached at scpnwan@nwlink.com. 

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