Past Exhibitions

Description: 

View photographs and learn more about past exhibitions at The Noguchi Museum and other institutions around the world.

Matrix code: 
04.01.03
Hammer, Chisel, Drill: Noguchi's Studio Practice
Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - Sunday, May 12, 2013

 

This exhibition explores Noguchi’s working process through a handful of studios that he kept beginning in the 1940s and continuing through the Long Island City and Mure Japan studios that he split his time between until his death.  The exhibition illuminates Noguchi’s practice during five studio periods over the course of his career including: the MacDougal Alley studio in New York (where he experimented with his slate and wooden interlocking sculptures in the 1940s); his Kita Kamakura studio in Japan (the origin of much of Noguchi’s brief experimentation with ceramic work in 1952);  the 10th Street studio in Long Island City (his headquarters in New York for the last 25 years of his life);  the Pietrasanta and Querceta studios near the Henraux quarries in Italy (where he rekindled his appreciation for direct stone carving in the mid- 1960s); and the studio at Mure, Japan (where from 1969 onward he spent half of his year working with hard stone). 

 

Hammer, Chisel, Drill also briefly considers Noguchi’s time as an assistant in the Paris studio of Constantin Brancusi, which was critical not only as the younger artist’s first exposure to direct stone-carving, but also for its influence on the way he would set up his own studios. Photographs documenting Noguchi at work, film footage, hand- and industrial tools that Noguchi used throughout his career, and selected sculptures further illustrate his production.

 

Highlights from the Collection
Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - Sunday, September 9, 2012

A newly-selected installment of the ongoing Highlights from the Collection series opens in June. This exhibition will feature key works from the Museum’s collection, including sculptures in stone, a selection documenting Noguchi’s experimentation with stainless steel and aluminum sculptures from the 1950s, as well as rarely shown pieces from the early 1940s incorporating string and wood elements.  A handful of design prototypes - including saucers and silverware - and sketches for furniture designs will appear alongside examples of both Noguchi’s iconic and lesser- known furniture designs  and Akari light sculptures , giving an overview of the Noguchi’s diverse production and achievement. 

Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City
Thursday, October 13, 2011 - Sunday, April 22, 2012
Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City
Thursday, October 13, 2011 - Sunday, April 22, 2012

Home to The Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park, the Queens community where northern Long Island City and Astoria converge is a textured, mixed industrial and residential community.  A resident since 1960, Isamu Noguchi was joined in the neighborhood by fellow artist and sculptor Mark di Suvero ten years later.  Throughout his career, Isamu Noguchi collaborated with many architects, designers and civic thinkers on various public projects and in 1985, realized his vision of a single artist museum in Long Island City.  One year later, di Suvero established neighboring Socrates Sculpture Park as an ongoing laboratory for art.  More than 25 years later, the realized visions of these two renowned artists--and the spaces they transformed--have brought international attention to the area.  

In response to this neighborhood, now undergoing significant change, The Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park have forged an alliance through Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City.  Four artists known for their work in the public sphere were invited to form individual teams featuring an architect or planner to conceive new approaches to development in this area of Long Island City that Noguchi and di Suvero helped to shape.  Artists Natalie Jeremijenko, Mary Miss, Rirkrit Tiravanija and George Trakas have explored visionary scenarios that would enable the community to continue to coexist alongside the light manufacturing and residential communities inherent to the area.  The outcome of this eight month process will be displayed at The Noguchi Museum through April 22, 2012.  Further realized components of each team’s proposals will be exhibited at Socrates Sculpture Park in May 2012.  

For videos about Civic Action, see vimeo.com/noguchimuseum

Tracks: Animal Drawings from Noguchi's Travels
Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - Sunday, September 18, 2011

Despite an enduring reputation as an artist interested in abstraction and spatial concerns, Noguchi avidly explored figuration and it informed much of his work.   During his travels from the 1920s through the 1950s, Noguchi's many drawings serve as a record of his daily life abroad, and his sketchbook renderings of animals form a particularly rich area of focus.  Some 40 of Noguchi's concise ink and pencil drawings, showing a masterly fluidity and improvisational sense, capture animals as part of city scenes, as architectural details, and in some instances, are placed side by side with studies for his abstract sculpture.

Highlights from the Collection
Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - Sunday, September 18, 2011

Complimenting the Noguchi Museum's permanently installed lower levels, selections from the Museum's Collections, including examples of Noguchi's steel sculptures and a number of collaborative stage sets, are now on view in the upstairs galleries.