Isamu NoguchiWhat is best shown off in this exhibition of Noguchi's brass sculpture from 1959-62, is the artist's close ties to nature and his successful transformation of organic forms, shapes seen in nature, into objects that preserve their former raw dignity and power while at the same time imbuing them with the touch of a poet. The pieces exist before technology. That is, they exist as homages to nature. Man's highest praise being: to use his intelligence and craft to build peaceful objects in which the natural forms of his environment are used. It is a "direct contact of man and matter." While organic in character, the pieces are not representative of anything. Instead, by using the component forms in shaping his arrangements, he celebrates and beatifies those existing shapes found in raw nature and emphasizes our debt and connection to them. The configurations imposed on the natural shapes don't attempt to improve on the natural but respectfully explore and find various ways to display an interaction. " . . . the natural mediums of wood and stone, alive before man was, have the greater capacity to comfort us with the reality of our being." The pieces have an aura of primitive ritual about them. They stand in the silence of centuries passing. You're not likely to come across a natural version of one of these sculptures walking in the woods, but if one of them were placed out there, it wouldn't clash with the setting. Three of the pieces are composed of long rectangular "branches" affixed by bolts to a thicker "trunk." The branches are positioned to counteract each other and a breathy suspension results. Imminent motion is implied since the joints aren't fixed but held by gravity, tension or a bolt on which a section dangles. They look like some wayward cactus, primitive and modern at the same time. Noguchi's steered-by-the-stars arrangement and tapering of the pieces is what makes them as sublime as a real cactus. Brancusi's influence (Noguchi studied with him) can be seen in the way the curves are streamlined. Noguchi's sense of design is so perfect that each component part seems to be placed exactly right. He re-creates perfection from the ordinary perfection of the natural. Staring at the pieces the effect is silence, meaning: that's it, there's nothing else need be said! Two other works are arrangements of long chime-like shapes suspended around a base stand, shaped similarly, and hung from a flat stone-like shape that closes off the top. Rock-like pieces separate a few "chimes." The "chimes" look like long pieces of wood, squared off with an ax and hatchet and then, once arranged, crystallized into stone. Yet, the way pieces dangle and seem to float into one another without crashing, there's also the contrary effect of lightness and suspension. It's amazing how the artist can make the metal feel so light. The patina surfaces on some of the pieces gives us the sense that we're seeing them through an early morning mist. And though in others the surface is dark, still we see the heavy metal tamed to flirt with gravity as delicately as ballet. (quotes taken from Noguchi on Noguchi) (Arts, January 1986) |