Isamu Noguchi: Master Sculptor at The Smithsonian's Hirshhorn
Written by Nicole Dorman for Greenlight Washington Blitz!
The Hirshhorn Museum, co-organized with the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, hosted the first Isamu Noguchi exhibit in over thirty years focusing on his sculptures from February 10 through May 8, 2005. Noguchi was the son of a Japanese poet and an American writer, whose works of art are poetic in feeling and industrialized in form as a designer, sculptor and architect.
The exhibit put on display 55 sculptures and 25 works on paper including pieces rarely seen. Using unusual materials such as paper, string, magnesite, chrome, plastic and electric lights, he creates sculptures that hang on walls, are suspended from wire, recline on the floor and stand upright.
The seven surviving "Lunar" works, which have never been shown publicly before, radiated lights through terra cotta shapes attached to the ceiling and walls in a dimly lit room. "This Tortured Earth" and "Night Land," sculptures symbolizing the artist's experience with his voluntary imprisonment in a Japanese-American internment camp in 1942, is well worth a look, along with "Monument to Heroes," a sculpture constructed of human bones. The last section of the exhibit, symbolizing the last two decades of his life, was a breathtaking display of the artist's sculptures constructed with pink, white, black, green and yellow stones that he acquired from his trips to Greece, France, Portugal, Sweden and Japan.
Noguchi, the master sculptor, was engaged by lived space, the space of human experience and hope.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden located at Independence Avenue and Seventh Street, SW continuously hosts various exhibitions such as their Visual Music exhibition from June 23 - September 11, 2005. The gallery is free to the public and is open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. For more information, visit the Hirshhorn online.
The Hirshhorn Museum, co-organized with the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, hosted the first Isamu Noguchi exhibit in over thirty years focusing on his sculptures from February 10 through May 8, 2005. Noguchi was the son of a Japanese poet and an American writer, whose works of art are poetic in feeling and industrialized in form as a designer, sculptor and architect.The exhibit put on display 55 sculptures and 25 works on paper including pieces rarely seen. Using unusual materials such as paper, string, magnesite, chrome, plastic and electric lights, he creates sculptures that hang on walls, are suspended from wire, recline on the floor and stand upright.
The seven surviving "Lunar" works, which have never been shown publicly before, radiated lights through terra cotta shapes attached to the ceiling and walls in a dimly lit room. "This Tortured Earth" and "Night Land," sculptures symbolizing the artist's experience with his voluntary imprisonment in a Japanese-American internment camp in 1942, is well worth a look, along with "Monument to Heroes," a sculpture constructed of human bones. The last section of the exhibit, symbolizing the last two decades of his life, was a breathtaking display of the artist's sculptures constructed with pink, white, black, green and yellow stones that he acquired from his trips to Greece, France, Portugal, Sweden and Japan.
Noguchi, the master sculptor, was engaged by lived space, the space of human experience and hope.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden located at Independence Avenue and Seventh Street, SW continuously hosts various exhibitions such as their Visual Music exhibition from June 23 - September 11, 2005. The gallery is free to the public and is open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. For more information, visit the Hirshhorn online.
