Best of Both Worlds: Isamu Noguchi

Splash Image - Best of Both Worlds: Isamu Noguchi
Isamu Noguchi, Archaic/Modern, installation view.
November 11, 2016

Isamu Noguchi, Archaic/Modern opens today, a celebration of the renowned sculptor who often found inspiration in ancient art and architecture, including Egyptian pyramids and Buddhist temples, Zen gardens and American Indian burial mounds. The nearly seventy-five objects in the show span the artist's six-decade career and show his love of material, whether it's natural or manmade, stone or even light, as evidenced in his ethereal Akari light sculptures.

Noguchi saw himself as an inventor as well as an artist. His Radio Nurse, both Cycladic and contemporary in appearance, is considered to be the first baby monitor. A man of this world and possibly a world beyond this one, he was not only interested in landscape and social spaces, but the atomic age and outer space as well. His Model for Sculpture to Be Seen from Mars (1946) was made in sand and no longer exists, but a wall mural in the exhibition captures the image of one world reaching out to another.

If you can't make it to the show, take a look at our online gallery. Isamu Noguchi, Archaic/Modern remains on view through March 19, 2017.

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