When the arts were being revolutionized in Paris in the 1920s, sculpture was being pushed in two directions: toward the abstract and toward the constructive. Much of the stylistic developments came from Cubism, while Surrealism introduced the subconscious as a source...
[more]When the arts were being revolutionized in Paris in the 1920s, sculpture was being pushed in two directions: toward the abstract and toward the constructive. Much of the stylistic developments came from Cubism, while Surrealism introduced the subconscious as a source for subject matter. And the young Isamu Noguchi, Japanese American by birth, met these artistic influences head on. Noguchi first sought out Alberto Giacometti, whose constructed pieces emphasize intense personal drama and potency, precise formalism, and a new spatial definition. With teacher Constantin Brancusi, Noguchi learned the nature of sculptural materials and explored abstraction. Noguchi began creating sculpture that incorporates the Surrealists' notion of the grotesque, with tortured bodies trapped inside cage-like grids. A notable example of this phase in his work is his moralistic 'Death (Lynch Figure).'
Not to say that Giacometti or Brancusi ordained the path Noguchi's art would take. On the contrary, Noguchi was committed to experimentation with form and content throughout his long career; he moved from pottery to Chinese brush painting, from Japanese landscape design to sculpture and furniture design. At the center of his art was a sense of how forms, especially human forms, interact with objects and space. While his sculpture tends toward abstraction and the surreal, it always maintains a classical sense of balance and stability. Classical aesthetics also inform his celebrated furniture designs. He created a table for Herman Miller with sculptural supports visible through the glass top; later, he introduced the Akari Lamp, a slender tripod topped with a wire and paper lampshade. In the early '30s he began experiments in Earth art, presaging the movement that would arrive decades later.
This new interest in environments led to his artistic association with two more modern artists: Richard Buckminster Fuller and Martha Graham. Fuller's Dymaxion House (1927) celebrated the marriage of technology and conservation. The architect's command of space inspired Noguchi, who proposed several designs for public parks (though none of these "environments" were actually built). In 1935 Noguchi had the opportunity to see one of his spatial projects constructed: the set design for Martha Graham's ballet 'Frontier.' He said of the production, ''Frontier' was in a sense the beginning and had within it all the elements of space perception, of the volume of space, perception of volume of not just two-dimensional, but of three-dimensional space of theater. And this is how it all went in my work." Noguchi created 20 sets for Graham, and went on to collaborate with George Balanchine and Merce Cunningham.
In the '60s Noguchi was able to realize monumental works of Environmental art, creating a brilliant series of public parks, playgrounds, and plazas. The most famous of these works is his Hart Plaza in Detroit. Centered around his enormous sculptural fountain, the eight-acre park fans out to include an amphitheater/skating rink and open, paved, grassy promenades that cover subterranean restaurants and performance spaces. The genius of his environments lies in not only in their beauty but their practicality; the balance of perfect scale and space includes provisions for lighting, drainage, traffic routes, security procedures, and visitor comfort. Noguchi translated the spatial emphasis of early-twentieth-century sculpture into a public, rather than private, art.
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