Isamu Noguchi- Skyviewing Sculpture

Born in Los Angeles, CA in 1904, Isamu Noguchi was a Japanese-American artist. Mr. Noguchi studied under sculptures like Gutzon Borglum and Brancusi developing his skills, but over the following decade, he would travel the world expanding his talents in the arts as he explored Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Throughout Mr. Noguchi’s work nature is extremely prevalent, he worked to connect his own art to nature and the surrounding environment.

Skyviewing Sculpture (1969), is a tilted cube with circular cut outs on each side and 14 feet- high. The tilt provides an opening to the viewer in a way that allows them to enter and experience the art first hand. The sculpture is made of painted iron lifted from the ground by three cylinder brick pedestals. It is meant to represent both man and nature coming together as one. The sculpture was commissioned by Ibsen Nelsen for the present space. One year prior to his creation of Skyviewing Sculpture, Mr. Noguchi created a similar piece titled, Red Square. It is 24-foot high red painted steel square with a circular hole cut through the side balancing on one corner. It is located in front of the HSBC building in New York City, NY.

The intent for this piece of artwork to be experienced instead of simply viewed, the space underneath and around it attracts college students from all over to lay underneath its shape on a sunny day during spring quarter. The art wasn’t just supposed to be just a beautiful sculpture for us to talk about and exclaim to ourselves, “what beauty’ no this sculpture was designed to become apart the student body itself.

And the sculpture has achieved that goal as well! As Isamu Noguchi has repeated through a multitude of medias; the purpose of his projects in the public sphere are for people to interact with the work. The intent of this work is for student and faculty to go inside the sculpture and sit with the sense of calm that feeling so small brings you. Noguchi thought it was very important for the audience of his works to be able to interact with the pieces he created. Noguchi was not just a sculptor, he helped plan memorials and helped design parks. What made Noguchi’s work so ahead of its time was that he was able to create these works that were effortlessly accessible to the masses while still retaining some sense of artistic mystery.

contributors:

Shannel Miller

Esther Laplante

Marissa Townsend

Special thanks to Riley Moore

Work Cited

Western Washington University. “Skyviewing Sculpture.” Western Gallery, The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, westerngallery.wwu.edu/sculpture/skyviewing-sculpture.

New York City Art Curriculum. “Art Works.” Blue of the Sky, www.blueofthesky.com/publicart/works/redcube.htm.

Brenson, Michael. “Isamu Noguchi, the Sculptor, Dies at 84.” The New York Times, 18 Dec. 1988.

“Biography.” Biography | The Noguchi Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.

Fuller, Richard Buckminster. Isamu Noguchi: A Sculptor’s World. London: Thames and Hudson, 1967. Print.