At the beginning of October, I visited the Noguchi exhibition at the Barbican and I was immediately captivated by Noguchi’s work.
Isamu Noguchi was one of the most influential 20th century Japanese-American artists. Throughout his career he explored many artistic fields ranging from sculpture, ceramics, furniture and light. Exploring with different mediums allowed Noguchi to question the relationship between the material form and the human form. In this blog I will be discussing the way in which Noguchi successfully merged art and furniture.
The first thing one notices after entering the exhibition space are Noguchi’s world famous lamps. These are displayed hanging from the ceiling as well as a few being placed on the ground. This creates a form of installation where one is engulfed in Noguchi’s world, unsure of if we are looking at furniture or art. I was very intrigued by this confusion as it led me the question the boundary between these two fields and how I as a designer can explore this.
Noguchi’s ‘Akari Light Sculptures’ were inspired after the artist’s trip to Gifu in Japan. This town is well known for its fabrication of lanterns and umbrellas out of mulberry bark paper and bamboo. Noguchi produced his light sculptures using these methods but modernised the design. This was achieved by using electricity. Due to their materiality, the lamps can be folded and therefore transportation is made easy and damage is reduced.
so the question how can artists, including myself, be influenced by Noguchi’s Akari Lamps? Well as previously stated the answer is simple yet practising it, is perhaps more complex. `If we as designers and artists can break down the boudaries between art and furniture then perhaps we can create work that is a lot more interesting and new.
A lot of people believe that function/comfort and aesthetics can not exist in the same piece of furniture. However, this is simply not true. Noguchi is one of many artists who have demonstrated this not only through his lamps but also famous coffee tables.