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"LES LAMPES AKARI" This film shows "... sculpture in its broadest sense led Noguchi to design lamps, furniture, and stage sets. In creating his famous AKARI lamps, he drew inspiration from traditional Japanese lanterns, replacing the wick with an electric bulb and transforming light into sculptural shapes. Light and pliable, made of papier collé and bamboo, these lamps from the early 1950s were immediately popular and much-copied. Noguchi went on to renew their design, making them increasingly complex, and thus inimitable. The film restores these Akari lamps to the context of the 1950s and 60s: a period of post-war reconstruction and economic boom, of sophistication in home lighting and the advent of mass consumption. Through archival footage, the artist traces the conception and evolution of his far-famed lamps." http://www.artfifa.com/photo-an/118.asp - - - "LIGHTING THE PAST: Isamu Noguchi's Akari Lanterns"; College Art Assoc. 2004 Conference, Kate Lemay, Indiana University. http://www.collegeart.org/annualconference/2004/index.html --- ON AKARI: "My other preoccupation at this time [1952] was the development of akari, the new use of lanterns that I had conceived on my previous trip. It was a logical convergence of my long interest in light sculptures, lunars, and my being in Japan. Paper and bamboo fitted in with my feeling for the quality and sensibility of light. Its very lightness questions materiality, and is consonant with our appreciation today of the less thingness of things, the less encumbered perceptions. The name akari which I coined, means in Japanese light as illumination. It also suggests lightness as opposed to weight. The ideograph combines that of the sun and moon. The ideal of akari is exemplified with lightness (as essence) and light (for awareness). The quality is poetic, ephemeral, and tentative. Looking more fragile than they are, akari seem to float, casting their light as in passing. They do not encumber our space as mass or as a possession; if they hardly exist in use, when not in use they fold away in an envelope. They perch light as a feather, some pinned to the wall, others clipped to a cord, and all may be moved with the thought. Intrinsic to such other qualities are handmade papers and the skills that go with lantern making. I believe akari to be a true development of an old tradition. The qualities that have been sought are those that were inherent to it, not as something oriental but as something we need. The superficial shapes or functions may be imitated, but not these qualities." The MAKING of AKARI LIGHT SCULPTURE The fabrication of Akari in Japan at Ozeki Company since 1951 follows the traditional methods for Japanese Gifu lanterns. Each Akari is hand crafted beginning with the making of washi paper from the inner bark of the mulberry tree. Bamboo ribbing is stretched across wooden molded forms, which resembles sculpture. The washi paper is cut into wide or narrow strips depending upon the size and shape of the lamp and then glued onto both sides of the framework. Once the glue has dried and the shape is set the internal wooden form is disassembled and removed. The outcome is a resilient paper form, which can be collapsed and packed flat for shipping. The Akari package includes Noguchi's patented metal wire stretcher and support system. [MORE Information on Akari Light Sculpture: Essay on the history of Akari, Akari and Early Gardens (1953-1959), Noguchi on Akari] <http://store.yahoo.com/akaristore/production.html> |
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