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The principle of the unknown, faceless observer is still the same today, but with technology, the observer is no longer restricted to what is visible from a watching post. By installing cameras across the city we have created a web of data controlled centrally, but dispersed over any physical distance. Amusingly, after reading this article I came across Big Brother is watching us all on the BBC.

We must also remember that our society is more accepting of criticism to its institutions, and we have more freedom to live outside its defined boundaries, depending on privileges of our nationality. What I find more concerning is the increasing specialization required in disciplines to be considered knowledgeable, and then the sheer effort needed to contribute to that knowledge base. The amount of capital required to create a sustainable business or piece of work is continually increasing, feeding the development of ever larger institutions to continue our perceived forward technological momentum. I digress.

Except in cases where those being observed are somehow stigmatized, be prisoners, or the ill, many institutions allow the observed to enter the pinnacle from which they are being observed, fostering a sense of closeness void from the Panopticon. For example, in schools we are allowed to visit the main office, and the offices of its staff. The troubling exception to this is public surveillance, where multiple sources such as video cameras and internet routers are constantly pooling information. The methods for combing this information is often performed by a computer which has no sense of morality, privacy, or restriction programmed into its software. Ethics is something which has yet to filtrate into computer programming, which overtime will hopefully change.

to slice
to notch
to crack

forming/deforming a land mass

balancing a rock
cutting a rock
signing a rock

man made rock

to combine
to twist
to pull

the pliabiliy of a medium

action expressionist sculpture/land art

the individuality of a rock

noguchi pictures

My day began with a bike ride. From Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to the museum, probably 15 miles give or take a few. I love biking through Brooklyn. Every 20 blocks you hit a different neighborhood, with a different ethnic prevalence. Probably not too dislike what Isamu Noguchi's life was like. Having been born in the US, raised in both the US and Japan, yet being accepted by neither. The major events of his life were likely more painful than any of the potholes I ran into on my way to the Pulaski Bridge.

Despite having so many of his project proposals rejected, being neither allowed in the US or Japan to undertake government funded projects on grounds of his nationality, Noguchi prevailed. Despite failure, Noguchi's works are nothing but soft, delicate, and natural.

The museum and its grounds were an excellent space to display his work. While I enjoyed the garden, probably one of the few landscapes Noguchi has completed, I thought it was a bit cluttered. I wonder if, or how it has evolved over time. I particularly liked the greenery which was planted, Japanese pine and American trees, representations of both his cultural backgrounds.

I found many of Noguchi's works difficult to understand. If I looked at the title of the piece, then back at the work, stood and furrowed my brow... I saw Noguchi's work as being highly abstract. In each work is a piece of Noguchi's philosophy. I couldn't hope to understand it in one viewing. On the other hand, I found his marble works easy to approach.

The marble itself is beautiful, and in many cases Noguchi is consciously crafting it into a shape. The "Sun at Noon", or its dark half are amazing. I love how Noguchi drilled holes and left their wake apparent. It is almost as if he wants you to see how he approached the stone. If only the museum had done a better job lighting these pieces so they could have come to life.

My favorite piece has to be "unmei". Many of Noguchi's works are titled in English, but this huge piece in the garden was not. Unmei in English means fate. Why did he name it "unmei" and not "fate"? Was he referring to the fate of his life or the rock's sculpting? Regardless, I felt a sense of fate as I looked down the deep corridor which had been carved through the top of the stone. There was only one path.

My path home was to jump on the tram across to 59th street, then back through Manhattan to Brooklyn.

If there is one point which Noguchi made with the all encompassing design of his museum it was the breaking down of barriers, or at least the pointed acknowledgement of the gray areas between barriers: between the “work of art” in the traditional sense of the term and the world in which it sits, between the natural and the manmade, between playful improvisation and careful preparation, between balance and disorder.

The broadest sense in which he does this is in the way the design of the museum mirrors the sculptures. Aging brick walls and cement floors present the same organic systems which Noguchi emphasizes in the rough, raw textures in much of the work. The wooden platforms on which many works are displayed becomes part of the work. The endless variety of plant life in the courtyard has the same simultaneous unity and disparity as sculptures. Everything works together and everything plays off of everything else.

While his work obviously shows a reverence for the natural word, there is also something alien about it, as if he is imagining what natural processes of growth and decay could look like in a slightly different world. Chunks are carved out of jagged rocks and replaced with perfectly smooth surfaces of a different color. Small, rough bumps of roughly the same size and shapes, unlike anything in nature but really not that unlike it, are chiseled into segments of stones. Somehow, it all maintains a balance.

While not exactly the most visually stimulating, probably the most thought provoking of his works for me was one of two large jagged rocks placed on top of three small wooden beams. After walking around to the other side of the piece I saw he had chiseled a small segment of bumps into the backside of each one, but still, even if he did add some very minor touches, or even if he actually carved the rocks into their current shapes, the overall feel of the piece was that he had taken two big rocks and simply appreciated their natural form enough to put them on a pedestal in his museum.