AN EXHIBITION VISIT: NOGUCHI

*Memorial to the Dead, Hiroshima, c. 1982.* The design for this piece was conceived in 1952 but remained unrealised, apparently rejected due to Noguchi’s American citizenship.

INSPIRATION

An Exhibition Visit : Barbican, London

Noguchi

I forget how much I love the Barbican gallery. The unforgiving brutalist architecture on the outside that gives way to the inter-linked balcony galleries and the vast atrium space that tease their visitors with slot-like horizontal views as well as vast vertical views.

The beautifully designed and curated Noguchi exhibition is commanding in this setting. The exhibition, a celebration of the work of the Japanese-American sculptor, Isamu Noguchi is an inter-play of light and dark, shape and space, materials and texture, art, craft, sculpture, product. And a life-long exploration of identity.

“With my double nationality and double upbringing, where was my home? Where my affections? Where my identity? Japan or America, either, both - or the world?”

Even the worksheet for a series of sculptures was a thing of beauty. Abstract shapes, the uniformity of the graph paper, the monochrome - I loved this piece.

Sculptural forms hewn from rock that appear to have ‘emerged from the earth’ sit in counter balance to beguilingly weighless pieces, perhaps physical demonstrations of Noguchi's feeling that ‘he belonged to the past and the future’.

It felt to me that there was both a solidity and fragility to the work, weight and weightless. Often made more dramatic by the use of light, either electric or where natural light would pool.

It’s a wonderful exhibition, I can’t recommend it enough. Go and see it if you get the chance.

The exhibition runs until 09 January 2022 (tickets available from The Barbican ).