Press Release

IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: CHRIS KOMAI
(213) 830-5648

ISAMU NOGUCHI – SCULPTURAL DESIGN EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS INNOVATIONS IN BOTH FINE, APPLIED ARTS

Interdisciplinary Artist Robert Wilson's Visual Design Provides Unique Stage for Traveling Exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum, Feb. 5-May 14

LOS ANGELES – The extraordinary versatility of renowned artist Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) is the focus of the landmark traveling exhibition Isamu Noguchi – Sculptural Design, on view at the Japanese American National Museum from February 5 through May 14, 2006. This exhibition features a diverse and important collection of more than 75 works produced over a 60-year period. Noguchi, who was of European-American and Japanese descent, combined his unique life experiences with a keen intellect and boundless creativity to become one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century. Fueled by his zest for artistic exploration, Noguchi's creative output extended to three continents and encompassed a wide range of fields including sculpture, furniture design, Akari lamp designs, dance and theater sets, playground environments, gardens, memorials, monuments, fountains, and public spaces.

"Isamu Noguchi demonstrated the rare ability to move between artistic disciplines almost effortlessly," notes Karin Higa, Senior Curator of Art for the National Museum. "His bicultural heritage gave him a unique aesthetic sense and his approach to art-making was revolutionary at the time. Today, the mixing of East and West and the fine and applied arts are common, but in his time, Noguchi was a major innovator. This exhibition highlights his lasting artistic influence and the exhibition design by Robert Wilson presents his work in a new context."

As one of today's foremost interdisciplinary artists, Robert Wilson makes a fitting choice as exhibition designer of Isamu Noguchi – Sculptural Design. Wilson, who became acquainted with Noguchi in the 1960s, is a director and set designer who shares Noguchi's passion for the theater and the thought-provoking use of light and space. He is also known for fusing sound, image, text and movement into evocative stage sets, exhibitions, and installations. When asked to present the many facets of Noguchi, Wilson prescribed large quantities of black lava sand and silver-colored gravel, sacks of broken glass, scores of aluminum squares and bales of straw to create distinctive and striking environments in each gallery. Each space has its own set design, an allusion to the different acts of a play. One room is shrouded in darkness, another is brightly illuminated, while the third invites visitors to walk across stepping stones positioned over an elegantly raked sea of gravel.

"We are honored to be the only California venue for this dynamic exhibition," says Irene Hirano, President and CEO of the Japanese American National Museum. "In 2004, the Japanese American National Museum was the site for Isamu Noguchi and Modern Japanese Ceramics, a traveling exhibition organized by the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery. Noguchi was born in Boyle Heights, only a mile away from our Pavilion, so installing his work here is like a homecoming. This is a rare opportunity to view the breadth of Noguchi's talents coupled with Robert Wilson's design.''

The exhibition was organized by the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany, in cooperation with the Isamu Noguchi Foundation Inc., New York. The exhibition design and visual concept by Robert Wilson were developed at the Watermill Center on Long Island, New York.

The Los Angeles presentation of Isamu Noguchi – Sculptural Design is made possible, in part, by the generous support of Ray Inouye, Chris Inouye, Steve Inouye, and Deena (Inouye) Lew; The James Irvine Foundation; Hisako Nerio Imamura & Akira Imamura; Sumi Nerio Leonard & Robert J. Leonard; Frank & Keiko Mizote; and The Henri & Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation. Additional support was provided by Steve &Linda Arai; Denise & R. Thomas Decker; Stephen L. Kagawa; John & Shirley Nakaki; David A. & Tina Yamano Nishida; Gyo & Courtney Obata; Michael Oshima & Chiaki Tanaka, Ph.D.; Karen Otamura & Michael Schneickert; Prudential Financial, Inc.; George Takei & Brad Altman; Guy & Audrey Watanabe; Sachiko Watanabe; Gordon Yamate & Deborah Shiba, D.D.S.; Herbert & Barbara Yuki; and Thomas & Carol Yuki. Public programs are supported, in part, by The Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles. Media sponsors are KSCI-TV; LA Weekly; and The Rafu Shimpo.

EXHIBITION

The exhibition begins in a dark and quiet room filled with designs that Noguchi created for choreographer Martha Graham, with whom he collaborated over four decades and designed 21 stage sets. Included in this display are set elements from Errand into the Maze (1947), Herodiade (1944) and Judith (1950). This presentation is contrasted by the next gallery–a brightly lit setting to a visually striking group of Akari lamps and furniture designs. Noguchi had coined the name Akari–meaning "to illuminate" in Japanese–for his paper lamp creations inspired by the night fishing lanterns he saw during a trip to Japan in 1951.

For the third gallery, Robert Wilson designed an installation alluding to a Japanese Zen garden, displaying Noguchi's stone sculptures on a bed of raked sand. Classic works include Water Table (1968), carved out of black Swedish granite; the model for the Horace E. Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain in Detroit (1971-79); the Swedish granite Mirage (1968); and the Indian granite Round Square Space (1970). The final space utilizes shining sheets of aluminum to cover the floor as many of the works hang from the ceiling. Presented here are Rocking Chair from Martha Graham's Appalachian Spring (1944); the Botticino marble study for Slide Mantra (1966-ca.1985), with which he represented the United States at the 1986 Venice Biennale; the Radio Nurse (1937), a utilitarian design for an early model of the nursery intercom; and Symbol Screens from Graham's Judith (1950).

ISAMU NOGUCHI

Isamu Noguchi was born in Los Angeles' Boyle Heights to Irish American editor Leonie Gilmour and Japanese poet Yonejiro Noguchi. At the age of two he was taken by his mother to Japan. Yonejiro Noguchi never accepted his illegitimate son and Isamu left the country at age 13 to attend a progressive boarding school in Indiana.

After initially studying medicine at Columbia University in New York City, Noguchi dropped out to study abstract sculpture. A Guggenheim Fellowship enabled him to relocate to Paris, where he worked as an apprentice for Constantin Brancusi and met Alexander Calder and Alberto Giacometti. He returned to New York and sculpted commissioned portraits to make a living. He also developed long friendships with visionary engineer R. Buckminster Fuller and choreographer Martha Graham while working on innovative designs for stage sets, furniture and public spaces. The 1930s would prove to be an intense and fruitful decade as Noguchi immersed himself in the culture of Japan, studied calligraphy in China, and worked on public murals in Mexico City.

When 120,000 Japanese Americans were unconstitutionally incarcerated by the U.S. government during World War II, Noguchi was not among those affected since he lived outside the restricted area of the West Coast. But in a desire to feel closer to other Japanese Americans and assist, he voluntarily entered the camp in Poston, Arizona and attempted to set up an art school. He memorialized his experience with his work, My Arizona (1943), which is part of this exhibition.

Noguchi returned to Japan for long periods of time in the 1950s, during which he collaborated with master artists Rosanjin Kitaoji and Sofu Teshigahara while inspiring a new generation of ceramicists including Kazuo Yagi and Kanjiro Kawai. These activities along with high profile exhibitions and speaking engagements positioned Noguchi as a central force in helping post-war Japan rediscover and redefine its artistic directions. With the support of Kenzo Tange, Noguchi received the commission to design bridge railings for the Peace Park in Hiroshima. Noguchi devoted much of his energies during this time to absorbing Japan's rich cultural heritage and traveling throughout various parts of the country. It was from these experiences that he found inspiration to experiment with ceramics, create Akari lamps, and design site-specific works reminiscent of Zen aesthetics in their simplicity, elegance, and use of natural materials.

Noguchi also began working on larger site-specific designs in the 1950s, including gardens and fountains, which he viewed as a single sculpture. For the rest of his career, he explored the possibilities of molding the landscape. Using water, flora, carved and natural stones, Noguchi sought to create spaces that address all the senses and respect both nature and culture. Said Noguchi, "The essence of sculpture is for me the perception of space, the continuum of our existence." Among the major commissions he completed are: the gardens at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris (completed 1958), the sunken garden at Gordon Bunshaft's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (completed 1964); the Billy Rose Sculpture Garden, Israel Museum, Jerusalem (completed 1965); the sunken garden at the Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza (completed 1964); Tengoku for the Sogetsu Flower Arranging School in Tokyo (completed 1978); and with Shoji Sadao, the Dodge Foundation and Philip A. Hart Plaza, Detroit (completed 1979); California Scenario at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa (completed 1982), "To the Issei" at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo (completed 1983), and Moerenuma Park in Sapporo, Japan (completed 2005).

In 1961, Noguchi established a studio and living quarters in an abandoned factory in Long Island City, Queens, which was across the East River from Manhattan; it later became the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in 1983. In Mure, Japan, on the island of Shikoku, Noguchi developed a collaboration with Masatoshi Izumi, and increasingly spent extended amounts of time there. In 1968, the Whitney Museum of American Art organized a retrospective exhibition and Noguchi published his autobiography, A Sculptor's World. He was designated the United States representative to the Venice Biennale (1986). Noguchi passed away in December of 1988 at the age of 84.

ROBERT WILSON

Robert Wilson was born in 1941 in Waco, Texas. He is known internationally for his theater and opera productions including Deafman Glance (1970), Einstein on the Beach (1976), the CIVIL warS (1981-1984), and Madame Butterfly (1993). Like Noguchi, Wilson has sought to combine diverse artistic disciplines into his productions.

Wilson studied architecture, painting and design at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute. Working for architect Paolo Soleri, Wilson found himself drawn to the theater and became friends with Noguchi's colleagues Martha Graham and George Balanchine as well as Merce Cunningham. He choreographed a dance event at the 1965 New York World's Fair and began creating performance and installation pieces.

After founding the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, an experimental group of artists, in 1968, Wilson began creating unique productions, including The King of Spain and The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud in New York City. Wilson continues to break new ground and has collaborated with Philip Glass, David Byrne, Tom Waits and William Burroughs. The New York Times once described Wilson as "a towering figure in the world of experimental theater and an explorer in the uses of time and space onstage. Transcending theatrical convention, he draws in other performance and graphic arts, which coalesce into an integrated tapestry of sound and images.''

CATALOGUE

Isamu Noguchi - Sculptural Design (by Katarina Posch, Jochen Eisenbrand and Alexander von Vegesack, The Vitra Design Museum, 2001) is a comprehensive catalogue for the traveling exhibition with essays by R. Buckminster Fuller, Shoji Sadao and Robert Wilson among many others. It is available through the Japanese American National Museum Store at www.janmstore.com.

JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM

The Japanese American National Museum is dedicated to fostering greater understanding and appreciation for America's ethnic and cultural diversity by preserving and telling the stories of Americans of Japanese ancestry. Since its incorporation in 1985, the National Museum has grown into an internationally recognized institution, presenting award-winning exhibitions, groundbreaking traveling exhibits, educational public programs, innovative video documentaries and cutting-edge curriculum guides. The National Museum raised close to $60 million to renovate an historic building in 1992 and open a state-of-the-art Pavilion in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo Historic District in 1999. There are now over 50,000 members and donors representing all 50 states and 16 different countries.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Isamu Noguchi – Sculptural Design
Special Ticket Prices

Adults: $12.00
Seniors (age 62+): $9.00
Students and Youth (ages 6-17): $8.00
Children 5 and under: Free
Museum Members: Free

Thursday evenings from 5 - 8 pm and all day on Feb 16, Feb 18, March 16, and April 20: Adults, seniors, students, and youth are $4. During these times, admission to all other Museum exhibitions is free. Special group rates are available for groups of 10 or more.

The Japanese American National Museum is located at 369 East First Street in the historic Little Tokyo section of Los Angeles. For more information, call (213) 625-0414 or visit www.janm.org. Museum hours are Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday: 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Thursday 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Metered street parking and public parking lots are conveniently located near the Museum for a nominal fee.