Isamu Noguchi: 'I am not a designer' is the catalogue to the High Museum of Art's major retrospective of Noguchi's design work—the first exhibition and book in more than 20 years devoted to the full breadth of his design practice.
About This Book
In 1949, at the height of his most productive years as a designer, Isamu Noguchi told a radio interviewer that he was not a designer at all. This book takes that denial as its starting point. Organised by the High Museum in Atlanta as part of its centenary, the exhibition and catalogue read Noguchi's 60-year career through the lens of design, arguing that what he called sculpture sits close to what we now understand design to be.
More than 20 essays and shorter vignettes by curators and scholars range across his furniture and Akari light sculptures, ceramics, stage sets for Martha Graham, public plazas, gardens and playgrounds—including Playscapes, the Atlanta playground he designed in the mid-1970s, a few blocks from the museum. Over 250 archival and contemporary images accompany the texts.
Key Features
- Catalogue to the first Noguchi design retrospective in more than two decades
- More than 20 essays and vignettes by an international group of scholars and curators
- Over 250 archival and contemporary images, many of rarely seen works
- Contributions from Glenn Adamson, Alexandra Lange, Marci Kwon, Ken Tadashi Oshima and Marc Treib, among others
- Covers the whole of his design output, from domestic objects to landscapes
What You'll Discover
- Why Noguchi resisted the label of designer while working across so many design fields
- The making of the Akari lights and their roots in Gifu lantern craft
- His furniture and industrial design, and his collaborations with manufacturers and architects
- Gardens, plazas and playgrounds as public, inclusive sculpture
- His ceramics and the place of Japanese craft traditions in his work
About the Author
Monica Obniski is curator of decorative arts and design at the High Museum of Art, and co-curated the exhibition with Marin R. Sullivan, an independent art historian and curator specialising in sculpture. They are joined by writers including the historian Glenn Adamson, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Alexandra Lange, Stanford art historian Marci Kwon and University of Washington architecture professor Ken Tadashi Oshima.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Dimensions: 248 × 276 mm
- Pages: 368
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780847876198
- Publisher: Rizzoli Electa
Perfect For: admirers of Noguchi's lamps and furniture, students of midcentury design and landscape, and anyone interested in where art ends and design begins.