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September 14, 2006
Noguchi Museum visit
Of course I didn't write down the directions for how to get to the museum, so I got off at 30th instead of Broadway. After a stressful "am I going the right way" walk to the waterfront and down Vernon, I found the Socrates Sculpture Garden, with its new exhibition of sculptures. Young children were playing around the sculptures, touching them and wanting to feel what the sculpture is made of, sometimes even climb on it. They seemed to be enjoying the art much more than their baffled parents, who seemed reluctant to let their children touch and interact with the sculptures.
Before going to the Noguchi Museum, all I knew about Noguchi was that he had designed a very beautiful table, which was unfortunately no longer interesting to me because I keep seeing it everywhere I go, available for sale at every other furniture store. I now know that that was not a very accurate perception of him at all, in fact, it is one that he might not be very happy about.
I learned a lot about Noguchi from the exhibition that explored the friendship and collaboration between him and Buckminster Fuller. There was a video of Noguchi talking to Fuller where he was talking about how when he first started working for Brancusi he did not like that Brancusi's work was so rooted in aesthetics alone, and how Noguchi himself wanted to make art that was useful (which is part of the reason why he and Fuller became so close) and that later in his work he was always struggling with these two idea(l)s, both of which have a strong influence on his work. Interestingly, this little discussion was filmed at a playground that Noguchi had designed, and as Noguchi was talking about art that is useful, the camera panned to a child climbing/playing on the sculpture/playground (this made me think back to the sculpture garden --why have sculpture in public spaces and not let people touch it?). In the exhibition, you could see the blocks that made up the playground (big, red polygons with holes that children can pass through), but it was somewhat strange to see them in a "do not touch" setting.
I found it really interesting to see how these two ideas/ideals play out in his work, and while I appreciated the elegance of the sculptures on the first and second floors, I was much more interested in the more playful, interactive designs of the public spaces, that are meant for people to enjoy in a more tangible, direct way.
Posted by Kyveli Vezani at September 14, 2006 11:40 AM