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拍品專文
Throughout his career, Isamu Noguchi possessed an almost preternatural understanding of the intrinsic properties of stone, teasing out its poetical and spiritual meanings in an array of evocative and unusual forms. At times, Noguchi paired two disparate materials in the same sculpture, opening up a dialogue between the two and thereby deepening our understanding of both. In Two Dependent Pieces, the artist joins together two pieces of Aji granite from his native Japan. One of three main types of granite commonly found in the country, it is distinguished by its stippled surface, its extreme durability, and is mysteriously often appears moist to the touch. This material held a special fondness for the artist, coming as it did from Japan, where Noguchi spent much of his childhood.
Between 1978 and 1979, Noguchi created a small series of Aji granite sculptures, which he exhibited—alongside the present example—at Pace Gallery in New York in 1980 and Galerie Maeght in Paris in 1981. More recently, the exhibit Salvaged Time at the Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York, delved further into this series, offering up a new appreciation for this beguiling body of work. Nestled together, the two rounded forms portray a feeling of closeness and intimacy. The stippled surface longs to be touched, and one can imagine running a hand over it, feeling the texture and cupping its rounded edges. Although the material boasts a hardness level on par with diamond and quartz, Noguchi is able to imbue the piece with softness and warmth.
In 1969, Noguchi set up an open-air studio at Mure, in Shikoku, Japan, where he could observe the rock cutters at the quarries there. This would inform his practice in new ways, ultimately leading to a period of renewed creativity as a result of his proximity to the freshly sourced stone. Observing the stone cutters at work, Noguchi was excited by the process and the tools required to make clean cuts into the material without it crumbling to pieces. He soon took up these tools himself, using coring drills and diamond-tipped saws. This allowed him to reveal the interior, unseen “essence” of the stone itself.
Writing in his catalog for Salvaged Time at the Noguchi Museum earlier this summer, the curator Matthew Kirsch elaborates upon the special connection between Noguchi and his proximity to granite stone-cutters. “Observing the mechanics of stone being cut at its point of origin, Noguchi witnessed the imprecision involved in fracturing marble and the logistical foresight and skill necessary to make granite cleave somewhat predictably. He arrived at new insights into the inner composition of stone as a natural register of the external and material conditions that shaped it on a geological timescale and as a measure of earthly existence beyond human quantification. This led him to gradually incorporate the life of stone as an overarching theme in his work” (M. Kirsch, Salvaged Time, exh. cat., The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York, 2022, unpaginated).
Noguchi had always been inspired by the intrinsic properties of stone. As a geological record of time, and forming the basis of prehistoric dwelling and even modern architecture, humanity has long been connected to this ancient material. For Noguchi, his stone sculptures came to embody certain universal truths, such as birth and death, and the endless flow of time. The artist explained: “When you make a thing out of rock … it is within the ecological continuum of the world…It will live, it will decompose … it returns to the earth, it is a part of the earth…[R]ocks belong more than you or I even... (I. Noguchi, interview circa 1978, courtesy The Noguchi Museum Archives; accessible via: https://www.noguchi.org/isamu-noguchi/digital-features/salvaged-time/)
Between 1978 and 1979, Noguchi created a small series of Aji granite sculptures, which he exhibited—alongside the present example—at Pace Gallery in New York in 1980 and Galerie Maeght in Paris in 1981. More recently, the exhibit Salvaged Time at the Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York, delved further into this series, offering up a new appreciation for this beguiling body of work. Nestled together, the two rounded forms portray a feeling of closeness and intimacy. The stippled surface longs to be touched, and one can imagine running a hand over it, feeling the texture and cupping its rounded edges. Although the material boasts a hardness level on par with diamond and quartz, Noguchi is able to imbue the piece with softness and warmth.
In 1969, Noguchi set up an open-air studio at Mure, in Shikoku, Japan, where he could observe the rock cutters at the quarries there. This would inform his practice in new ways, ultimately leading to a period of renewed creativity as a result of his proximity to the freshly sourced stone. Observing the stone cutters at work, Noguchi was excited by the process and the tools required to make clean cuts into the material without it crumbling to pieces. He soon took up these tools himself, using coring drills and diamond-tipped saws. This allowed him to reveal the interior, unseen “essence” of the stone itself.
Writing in his catalog for Salvaged Time at the Noguchi Museum earlier this summer, the curator Matthew Kirsch elaborates upon the special connection between Noguchi and his proximity to granite stone-cutters. “Observing the mechanics of stone being cut at its point of origin, Noguchi witnessed the imprecision involved in fracturing marble and the logistical foresight and skill necessary to make granite cleave somewhat predictably. He arrived at new insights into the inner composition of stone as a natural register of the external and material conditions that shaped it on a geological timescale and as a measure of earthly existence beyond human quantification. This led him to gradually incorporate the life of stone as an overarching theme in his work” (M. Kirsch, Salvaged Time, exh. cat., The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York, 2022, unpaginated).
Noguchi had always been inspired by the intrinsic properties of stone. As a geological record of time, and forming the basis of prehistoric dwelling and even modern architecture, humanity has long been connected to this ancient material. For Noguchi, his stone sculptures came to embody certain universal truths, such as birth and death, and the endless flow of time. The artist explained: “When you make a thing out of rock … it is within the ecological continuum of the world…It will live, it will decompose … it returns to the earth, it is a part of the earth…[R]ocks belong more than you or I even... (I. Noguchi, interview circa 1978, courtesy The Noguchi Museum Archives; accessible via: https://www.noguchi.org/isamu-noguchi/digital-features/salvaged-time/)