“On Becoming An Artist: Isamu Noguchi and His Contemporaries, 1922–1960” is a remarkable exhibition, not least because it has been mounted in a manner thoroughly in keeping with the aesthetic of its primary focus: the American artist Isamu Noguchi (1904–88). Noguchi’s vision—taciturn and considered, poised, hushed, and given to sharply stated poetics—has been put into play with uncanny precision by the independent curator Amy Wolf working in cooperation with the Noguchi Museum curator Bonnie Rychlak.
The show is a hodgepodge of sorts, comprised, as it is, of art, artifacts, maquettes, documents, letters, clippings, invitations, blueprints, photographs, curiosities, and other ephemera. True: Noguchi is a unifying factor—or, rather, it’s the artistic, personal, and professional touchstones of his formative years—but that didn’t guarantee an exhibition marked by discreet juxtapositions, meditative rhythms, and softly stated revelations. Then again, what else would you expect of an institution that is, in so many ways, an oasis, particularly given its location in one of New York City’s grittier precincts?
Noguchi remains a monumental, if congenitally aloof, fixture of twentieth century American art; it can be easy to take for granted his myriad accomplishments as sculptor, draftsman, furniture, lighting and set designer, theatrical collaborator, and, though many projects went unrealized, architect for playgrounds, swimming pools, and monuments. Artists, Noguchi felt, “should inject their knowledge of form and matter into the everyday, usable designs of industry and commerce.” An unshakeable belief in art’s utility—in its ability to encompass and transcend different cultures, social strata,