Isamu Noguchi - A New Nature
Good art should make you think, even when the very subjective categories like emotion or aesthetics aren’t to your taste. So if a work of art intentionally does the opposite, what are you to make of it?
That’s a question I invite you to answer for yourself with works by Isamu Noguchi (1904 - 1988), an artist and landscape architect best known for his sculpture and furniture designs.
Many of the works on display, from the mid-50s to early 80s, are incredibly minimalist. You could, if you wanted, discuss what his abstract objects remind you of, but that would be missing the point. (Images 2 and 4)
Each of the rooms is laid out like a Japanese zen garden. Accordingly, there is no main focal point nor clear indication as to what, if anything, you should be looking at. Sometimes, there is nothing at all to look at unless you look up (Image 6).
The rooms are serene. Meditative. They invite you to slow down and just… be. I desperately wanted to sit amongst the minimalist beauty and clear my mind of all thought. Which is exactly the opposite of what I normally wish for when I enter an art gallery.
Unfortunately, in spite of the works having been quite literally designed for seating (Images 2-3) or as children’s playground climbers (Image 5), commercial galleries are not in the business of encouraging excessive loitering or on-site meditation.
Jarring signs that warn “Please do not step on the artwork” (Image 8) and “Children must be kept in hand” felt directly at odds with the intentions of the work.
So I wasn’t able to clear my mind or think anything other than snarky thoughts about the similarities to an IKEA showroom from the two Akari Cloud pieces dated 2022 which, I assume, are not something Noguchi himself would have sanctioned. (Images 7-8)
It’s a shame re-sale worries have compromised the experiences these works were originally intended to elicit. That doesn’t mean you should skip the show.
At White Cube (@whitecube) until 03 April
For more information on the artist: