Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery will be holding a retrospective exhibition commemorating the 30th anniversary of Isamu Noguchi's death, "Isamu Noguchi: From Sculpture to Body and Garden," from July 14th to September 24th.

Portrait of Isamu Noguchi
©The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artist Rights Society [ARS] - JASPAR. Photo by Jack Mitchell.

Born to the poet Yone Noguchi and an American mother, Isamu Noguchi lived a life traversing global cultures, producing a wide and monumental range of works, from sculpture to stage art, furniture, and lighting fixture design, as well as ceramics, gardens, and landscape design.

This exhibition will present the full scope of Noguchi's work and his explorations of physicality, showcasing over 80 pieces from both Japan and overseas. This exhibition focuses on how Noguchi always maintained an awareness of the "body" even in the field of abstract sculpture, and how this awareness expanded into the environment surrounding humans, such as children's playground equipment and landscapes, and into what Noguchi himself called "spatial sculpture," or a passion for gardens. It also sheds light from various angles on the expansion of Noguchi's cross-disciplinary activities, confronting history and tradition, and revealing Noguchi's comprehensive vision that included life and society.

Isamu Noguchi, Peking Drawing (Reclining Man), 1930, Ink on paper, Collection of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York©The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artist Rights Society [ARS] - JASPAR. Photo by Kevin Noble.
The exhibition is composed of four chapters. Chapter 1, "Dialogue with the Body," introduces the importance of questioning the physicality in Noguchi's practice, primarily through his early works, including sculptures, drawings, and stage art. "Beijing Drawings," a collection of body drawings Noguchi created in his youth in Beijing, will be exhibited for the first time in Japan, bringing together eight of his works.

Since arriving in Japan in 1950 after the war, Noguchi has engaged in new creative endeavors while engaging with Japanese lifestyles, traditions, history, and society, interacting with numerous artists, including architect Yoshiro Taniguchi and ceramicist Rosanjin Kitaoji. This has resulted in a diverse range of activities that transcend genres, including not only sculpture but also furniture and lighting design, architectural interiors, and gardens. Chapter 2, "Reunion with Japan," explores Noguchi's comprehensive vision, which began in the 1950s, the year he reconnected with Japan, and sought to create works that function as sculptures within society and daily life.

Isamu Noguchi "Light" Design 1953~ Paper, bamboo, metal Collection of Kagawa Prefectural Museum
Chapter 3: Spatial Sculpture - Towards Gardens introduces sculptural works made from the earth, including gardens, parks, and landscapes, which he worked on until his final years. Noguchi's ideas for works on a global scale began very early on, and he realized many of these projects from the 1960s onwards. Noguchi's garden work was an attempt to connect sculpture to the earth, and at the same time, it also involved confronting the human body, which is bound to the earth by gravity. This exhibition showcases Noguchi's work, which explores the earth and its topography on a global scale, through the use of models, documents, and newly shot video footage. This exhibition explores his work, which explores the landscape and its topography, through the creation of a tranquil Japanese garden and a relaxing space for visitors. Chapter 4, "Communion with Nature: Stone Sculpture," showcases Noguchi's austere stone sculptures, crafted from basalt and granite, both harder than marble, and represent the latter half of his career. Based on simple forms, these works, sometimes showcasing the natural expressions of stone, transcend conventional concepts of sculpture. For Noguchi, stone was not simply a material for realizing his desired forms; it was a fundamental substance that speaks to the eternal history of the Earth and the laws of nature. He felt a deep allure that invites people into the "time" carved into the earth. His stone sculptures, in tandem with his gardening work, reconnected the human mind and body to the earth and expanded his contemplation of space and time, resulting in a generous and rich artistic world.

Isamu Noguchi, Archaic, 1981, Basalt, Kagawa Museum Collection
©The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artist Rights Society [ARS] - JASPAR. Photo by Akira Takahashi.
A related event will be a commemorative talk entitled "Collaborators Discuss Noguchi's Creative Work and His 'Gift to the Future'." The talk will feature stone sculptor Masatoshi Izumi and architect Sadao Shoji, with exhibition curator Takashi Niimi as the interviewer, at Shinjuku Park Tower Hall from 1pm on July 14th. Advance applications can be made via the application form on the Living Design Center OZONE website (https://www.ozone.co.jp/pro/seminar/detail/584). The maximum capacity is 200 people, and the general participation fee is 1,000 yen.

Why not come and see the first full-scale retrospective exhibition in Japan in 12 years, which focuses on the work of Noguchi, who lived as a global citizen?