Post-Grad Community Mixer: NOGUCHI at the Barbican Centre

NOGUCHI at the Barbican Centre by Marina Maluf Tasca, MA Illustration, Camberwell College of Arts and Post-Grad Community Ambassador

On Thursday 11 November, a group of students from UAL's Post-Grad Community where provided the opportunity to meet with Curatorial Assistant, Andrew de Brún, for the NOGUCHI exhibition at the Barbican Centre. The exhibition explores the career of the Japanese-American artist, Isamu Noguchi (1904 -1988), one of the greatest names of sculpture in the twentieth century.

Having prepared the exhibition during the pandemic, the Barbican brought together pieces from different artistic institutions around the world, including works never seen in London. Displaying an incredible range of Noguchi’s sculptures in stone, ceramic, wood and aluminium, the show navigates through the interdisciplinary themes that marked 6 decades of his practice. Noguchi created “from theatre sets to playground models, from landscape designs to furniture and lightning” and stated by the end of his life:

Discovering a Garden of Light and Stone

The exhibition counts 13 rooms in total: 5 in the Lower Gallery and 8 in the Upper Gallery. Divided through thematic phases rather than chronological order, the Barbican’s brutalist architecture seems to naturally embrace Noguchi’s sculptures. Collaborating with architects and exhibition designers, the Barbican decided to do a very simple setting so that the pieces could speak for themselves. A subtle play of light was made to create different atmospheres in each of the rooms.

The Lower Gallery was made into a sculpture garden; it invites us to walk through the pieces and have a feeling of discovery with each meeting. The Barbican grouped the pieces considering their heights and set them as if “emerging from the earth”, as Noguchi would say, which he regarded to be “our platform to humanity, as the Japanese well know”.

There are works from different periods put side by side and often a play of contrasts: heavy, big pieces are placed beside light and delicate ones. Noguchi believed that “opposites come together” and he searched to “deny weight and substance”.

There are three other rooms located in the Lower Gallery, added with the purpose of ensuring literal contact with Noguchi’s works. There you can sit on benches designed by him, made of stone or wood, and enjoy watching films and interviews with the artist.

In the Upper Gallery, 8 rooms are set circling 8 important phases of Noguchi’s life and work. The first room runs through his youth in New York and Paris, where he worked as apprentice under Brancusis’ mentorship. The second talks about his recollections over his childhood in Japan, trailing effortlessly into his values of science and technology after an enriching encounter with R. Buckminster Fuller. The rooms also go through the periods of before, during, and after World War II, showing the impact it had on Noguchi’s life and how he faced it through his artwork.

In conversation with Andrew De Brún, the visiting students from the Post-Grad Community got to know that the Barbican had kept the idea for this exhibition in “stand-by” for many years, waiting for the perfect opportunity to bring it to public.

They recognize Noguchi is not as well known in London as a sculpture of his importance should be, but the reason why they brought it now was also as a response in facing the environmental crises.

Noguchi’s dedicated his life to a work that could relate and speak to nature, and even within catastrophic periods of history, it searched to bring a force of positiveness and hopefulness.

A Citizen of the Earth

Noguchi’s was son to an Irish-American mother and Japanese father; born in Los Angeles with a childhood spent in Japan. His biracial heritage meant for him a lifelong conflict.

Many described Noguchi as a “Da Vinci type of figure” for his wide range of interests, his love for science and arts and the belief that art should be used as a tool to improve how people lived. He thought sculpture exists to give meaning to space, and that we are all affected by it, whether we notice it or not.

Noguchi expanded the understanding of sculpture of his time by looking for its essence. Inspired by Japanese gardens, he explored “a sense of spiritual connection between humanity and the earth”. He also thought it should be “projected into communal usefulness” and searched to mix traditional craft with fine art.

He was criticized for doing “commercial” artwork, especially after the creation of his series of lamps, which were sold for less than 10 dollars. Strongly opposing to this idea, he defended what he called “Social Sculpture”, saying art is something everyone should be able to access, afford and have at home.

By the end of his life, having travelled around the world searching for a place where he felt he belonged, Noguchi decided he was a “Citizen of the Earth”.

Related links

• Find out more about the NOGUCHI exhibition at the Barbican Centre
• Follow Marina on Instagram
• Follow Post-Grad Community on Instagram to hear more about our events

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