ИСАМУ НОГУЧИ
イサム·ノグチ/
איסמו נוגוצ’י/
이사 무 노구치
野口勇
ايسامو نوغوشي

NINE FLOATING FOUNTAINS

source: incredible-pictures

Isamu Noguchi was a prominent Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces, some of which are still manufactured and sold.

In 1947, Noguchi began a collaboration with the Herman Miller company, when he joined with George Nelson, Paul László and Charles Eames to produce a catalog containing what is often considered to be the most influential body of modern furniture ever produced, including the iconic Noguchi table which remains in production today His work lives on around the world and at the Noguchi Museum in New York City.
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source: daiphunnuoc

Đài phun nước có thiết kế độc đáo này nằm tại Osaka, Nhật Bản. Được xây dựng năm 1970 đài phun nước Floating là kiệt tác cuối cùng mà Kiến trúc sư Isamu Noguchi dành cho hội chợ triển lãm quốc tế tại Osaka, Nhật Bản.Điều thú vị nhất là xem chúng tăng lên từ mặt nước và bắt đầu tạo ra các dòng nước chảy một cách ảo tưởng. Kiến trúc sư Isamu Noguchi đã tạo nên 9 đài phun nước “lơ lửng ” tại hội chợ triển lãm quốc tế thời gian đó và tất cả đều được kiểm soát bằng hê thống máy tính. Những đài phun nước đầy mê hoặc này tạo cho người xem có cảm giác như là chúng đang bay trên không trung.
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source: noguchi

Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) was one of the twentieth century’s most important and critically acclaimed sculptors. Through a lifetime of artistic experimentation, he created sculptures, gardens, furniture and lighting designs, ceramics, architecture, and set designs. His work, at once subtle and bold, traditional and modern, set a new standard for the reintegration of the arts.

Noguchi, an internationalist, traveled extensively throughout his life. (In his later years he maintained studios both in Japan and New York.) He discovered the impact of large-scale public works in Mexico, earthy ceramics and tranquil gardens in Japan, subtle ink-brush techniques in China, and the purity of marble in Italy. He incorporated all of these impressions into his work, which utilized a wide range of materials, including stainless steel, marble, cast iron, balsawood, bronze, sheet aluminum, basalt, granite, and water.

Born in Los Angeles, California, to an American mother and a Japanese father, Noguchi lived in Japan until the age of thirteen, when he moved to Indiana. While studying pre-medicine at Columbia University, he took evening sculpture classes on New York’s Lower East Side, mentoring with the sculptor Onorio Ruotolo. He soon left the University to become an academic sculptor.

In 1926 Noguchi saw an exhibition in New York of the work of Constantin Brancusi’s that profoundly changed his artistic direction. With a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Noguchi went to Paris, and from 1927 to 1929 worked in Brancusi’s studio. Inspired by the older artist’s reductive forms, Noguchi turned to modernism and a kind of abstraction, infusing his highly finished pieces with a lyrical and emotional expressiveness, and with an aura of mystery.

Noguchi’s work was not recognized in the United States until 1938, when he completed a large-scale sculpture symbolizing the freedom of the press, which was commissioned for the Associated Press building in Rockefeller Center, New York City. This was the first of what would become numerous celebrated public works worldwide, ranging from playgrounds to plazas, gardens to fountains, all reflecting his belief in the social significance sculpture.

In 1942 Noguchi set up his studio at 33 MacDougal Alley, in Greenwich Village, having spent much of the 1930s based in New York City but traveling in Asia, Mexico, and Europe.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the backlash against Japanese-Americans in the United States had a dramatic personal effect on Noguchi, motivating him to become a political activist. In 1942 he started Nisei Writers and Artists Mobilization for Democracy, a group dedicated to raising awareness of the patriotism of Japanese-Americans. He also asked to be placed in an internment camp in Arizona, where he lived for a brief seven months. Following the War, Noguchi spent a great deal of time in Japan exploring the wrenching issues raised during the previous years. His ideas and feelings are reflected in his work of the time, particularly the delicate slab sculptures included in the 1946 exhibition “Fourteen Americans,” at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Noguchi did not belong to any particular movement, but collaborated with artists working in a range of different mediums and schools. He created stage sets as early as 1935 for the dancer/choreographer Martha Graham, that began a lifelong collaboration, as well as for dancers/choreographers Merce Cunningham, Erick Hawkins, and George Balanchine and composer John Cage. In the 1960s he began working with stone carver Masatoshi Izumi on the island of Shikoku, Japan, a collaboration that would also continue for the rest of his life, and from 1960 to 1966 he worked on a playground design with the architect Louis Kahn.

When given the opportunity to venture into the mass-production of his interior designs, Noguchi seized it. In 1937 he designed a Bakelite intercom for the Zenith Radio Corporation, and in 1947, his glass-topped table was produced by Herman Miller. This design—along with others such as his designs for Akari Light Sculptures which was developed in 1951 using traditional Japanese materials—are still being produced today.

In 1985 Noguchi opened The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum (now known as The Noguchi Museum), in Long Island City, New York. The Museum, established and designed by the artist, marked the culmination of his commitment to public spaces. Located in a 1920s industrial building across the street from where the artist had established a studio in 1960, it has a serene outdoor sculpture garden, and many galleries that display Noguchi’s work, along with photographs and models from his career.

Noguchi’s first retrospective in the United States was in 1968, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City. In 1986, he represented the United States at the Venice Biennale. Noguchi received the Edward MacDowell Medal for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to the Arts in 1982; the Kyoto Prize in Arts in 1986; the National Medal of Arts in 1987; and the Order of Sacred Treasure from the Japanese government in 1988. He died in New York City in 1988.
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source: noguchi

イサム・ノグチ（1904-1988）は20世紀が生んだ最も偉大な彫刻家のひとりです。生涯を芸術表現の実験的試作に捧げ、彫刻、庭園、家具と照明デザイン、陶芸、建築および舞台美術など幅広い作品を残しました。ノグチの作品は繊細でありながら大胆、伝統を踏まえつつモダンであり、多様な芸術分野を統合したあらたな表現方法を確立しました。

ノグチは生涯を通じて各国を旅しつづけた国際人でした。（晩年には日本とニューヨークの双方にアトリエを構えています。）メキシコにて大規模な公共作品から強烈な影響を受け、日本では素朴で滋味あふれる陶磁器と静謐な庭園に触れ、中国では洗練された水墨画の技術を習い、イタリアでは大理石の真の美しさを見出しました。ステンレス鋼、大理石、鋳鉄、バルサ角材、青銅、アルミニウム板、玄武岩、花崗岩、そして水にいたるまで多種多様な材質を操り、ノグチは世界各地で得たありとあらゆる経験や影響を自身の作品の中に融合させています。
ノグチは、アメリカ人の母と日本人の父の間にカリフォルニア州ロサンジェルスで生まれ、13歳で再渡米しインディアナ州に移り住む以前は、母のもとに日本で育ちました。ニューヨークのコロンビア大学の医科予備校で学ぶかたわら、ロウアー・イースト・サイド地区で彫刻家オノリオ・ルオトロに師事し、夜間クラスで彫刻を学びます。ほどなくコロンビアを退学し、ノグチは古典的なアカデミック様式の彫刻家になる道を選びます。
1926年に、ニューヨークの展覧会にてルーマニア出身の彫刻家、コンスタンチン・ブランクーシの作品を見たことは、ノグチ自身の芸術観の大きな転機となります。ジョン・サイモン・グッゲンハイム財団からの奨学金によってノグチはパリに渡り、1927年から1929年までブランクーシのアトリエで助手を務めます。ブランクーシの余剰を削ぎ落としたかたちづくりの影響を受け、ノグチもまたモダニズムの抽象的表現に傾倒し、極めて滑らかに仕上げられたフォルムと質感の中に、叙情と情感、そして神秘的な雰囲気が混在した作品を創出します。
ノグチの作品は1938年までアメリカでは高い評価を受けることがありませんでした。同年、ニューヨークのロックフェラー・センターのAP通信社ビルに設置する作品の制作依頼を受け、「報道の自由」の主題を象徴的に表現した大規模彫刻を完成させます。この作品は、後に遊び広場やプラザ、庭園や噴水といったかたちで実現され、世界各地で高い評価を受けることになる数々の公共空間プロジェクトの先例となり、彫刻芸術が社会的に重要な役割を果たしうるというノグチの信念を反映しています。
ノグチは1930年代のほとんどをアジア・メキシコ・ヨーロッパを旅して過ごし、1942年にマンハッタンのグリニッジ・ヴィレッジのマクドゥーガル小路33番地にアトリエを設けました。
日本軍の真珠湾攻撃とアメリカ国内での日系アメリカ人への強い反感はノグチの人生にも劇的な変化をもたらし、彼を政治的活動に駆り立てました。1942年に「民主主義のための二世文筆家と芸術家動員（Nisei Writers and Artists Mobilization for Democracy）」を組織し、日系アメリカ人のアメリカへの愛国心を換気する活動に尽力します。また、志願してアリゾナ州の日系人強制収容所に入所し、短期間ながらも7ヶ月をそこで過ごしました。終戦後には大戦中に生じた痛ましい問題や状況に向き合おうと日本に長期滞在します。ノグチの当時の考えや思いは彼の作品から察することができ、とりわけ1946年にニューヨーク近代美術館での『14人のアメリカ人作家（Fourteen Americans）』展に出品された、繊細で優美な薄い背板型の大理石を組合わせた作品はこの時期の代表作といえます。

ノグチは特定の芸術家のグループや運動には属しませんでしたが、様々な表現方法や流派の芸術家たちと広く交流しつつ作品を制作しました。舞踏家で振付師のマーサ・グレアムのための最初の舞台装置は1935年に制作され、それ以後ノグチとグレアムのコラボレーションは生涯に渡るものになります。グレアム以外にも舞踏家／振付師のマース・カニングハム、エリック・ホーキンス、ジョージ・バランシン、そして作曲家のジョン・ケージらとも仕事をしました。1960年代にはノグチの晩年まで続くことになる日本人の石工、和泉正敏と四国での共同制作を始め、1960年から1966年の間には建築家ルイス・カーンと共同で遊び広場をデザインしました。

ノグチは自身の家具や工業デザイン作品の大量生産化にも極めて積極的でした。1937年にゼニス・ラジオ社のためにベークライト・ラジオ機をデザインし、1947年にはハーマン・ミラー社からガラス板のノグチ・テーブルを発表しています。この二作以外にも、日本の伝統的な提灯の素材から着想を得て1951年にデザインしたAKARI（あかり）ランプなどのノグチによるデザインは、現在も製造され続けています。

1985年に、ノグチはイサム・ノグチ庭園美術館（通称ノグチ美術館）をニューヨークのロング・アイランド・シティ地区に設立しました。ノグチ本人が創設だけでなくデザインもすべて手掛けたこの美術館は、公共空間を芸術作品として捉えたノグチの美意識の結晶といえます。美術館は、ノグチが1960年に設けたアトリエの向かいにある1920年代の工場を改装して再利用し、静寂とした庭園とノグチの彫刻作品を写真やデザイン模型と共に紹介する展示室を擁しています。

ノグチのアメリカでの最初の回顧展は1968年にニューヨークのホイットニー美術館で開催され、また1986年にはヴェニス・ビエンナーレでアメリカ館を代表する作家に選ばれています。1982年に芸術振興への貢献の功労としてエドワード・マクドウェル栄誉賞を受賞し、1986年に京都賞思想・芸術部門（当時は精神科学・表現芸術部門）、1987年に全米芸術栄誉賞、そして1988年には日本政府から勲三等瑞宝章を送られました。ノグチは1988年にニューヨークで永眠しました。