Curated exclusively for the Western Gallery at Western Washington University by Dakin Hart, Senior Curator at The Noguchi Museum, New York, this exhibition brings Isamu Noguchi’s skyviewing sculptures together for the first time. More than forty sculptures and several drawings have been loaned for the exhibition by The Noguchi Museum.

The exhibition explores the various forms that the skyviewing theme takes in context of works comprising sixty years of Noguchi’s long career, 1928 to 1988. While some of Noguchi’s sculptures act as observatories, encouraging viewers to enter and turn their gaze to the sky, others act as reflecting telescopes with polished stone or water that mirror the heavens. Still others trace the path of the sun with cast shadows, or lead the eye upwards. Recalling sundials, celestial bodies, and spaceships, the works encourage “an awareness of the void” and express Noguchi’s desire to help humanity to calibrate “the relative value of all things.”

One of Noguchi’s most ambitious exploration of the theme was accomplished with the 17-foot-high landmark Skyviewing Sculpture that he created for Western Washington University’s central plaza, Red Square, in 1969. Along with other sculptures in Western’s renowned sculpture collection, the Skyviewing Sculpture has long been a resource for self-directed education and is used for interpretative training in several courses in the University’s different colleges. This will be expanded during the exhibition. Beyond talks and creative activities for schools and families, extensive interpretative events will take place during the exhibition, including a two day symposium on October 23–24. Learn more at westerngallery.wwu.edu.