Essay #3

The trip to the  Museum on Wednesday was a total different experience for Many of my classmates and myself. It was the first time that we actually went to a museum all together as a class, for many it was the time to socialize and make new friends, It was also a time to learn and explore abstract art. Related to the readings and what we learn in class, abstract art introduces us to unfamiliar situations, frees our brains from the dominance of reality and creates new emotional and cognitive associations. In abstract art, the brain is free to scan the whole surface of the painting rather than “fall” mostly into well recognized features.

        The Noguchi Museum was all base on the same artist and one form of art “sculpture” mostly abstract art. The history all around the Noguchi museum was fascinating, there was so much to learn about, each piece of art had a significant meaning to the artist and a history to reveal. The museum was kept the way the Noguchi wanted, everything was designate to an specific place, something that I love about sculptures is that everything is meant to see from different angles, In the Noguchi museum there was no line distance, even though we were not allow to touch the sculptures, there was extremely space to walk around them.

       Some of the history that I learn about Isamu  Noguchi was that he was born in Los Angeles, California in 1904, Noguchi  was a sculpture, designer, architect and a craftsman, he was all in “ONE”.  His mother  Leonie was an Irish American teacher and editor and his father Yone Noguchi was a  Japanese poet. At an early age  his father left them, eventually his mother went back to Japan speaking little Japanese and  with little resources to survive. At age 14, Noguchi comes back to the US with no parents, he started to write and edit poems in English for the first time, he was Studying to be a doctor at Columbia  University; But his dream was to became an artist, with the help of his mom he soon left the University to became on academic sculpture. Noguchi started working with figurative work, which then evolved to abstract art. In 1985 the Noguchi  Museum was open, and three years later in 1988 at age 84 Noguchi died.

      In all of Noguchi work of art we  can see a contrast  between Eastern and Western culture, it is the cultural divide between his parents, two distinct worlds and history that made him approach art in a unique way. Noguchi said “ The art of stone in a Japanese garden is that of placement. Its ideals do not deviate from that of  nature.. but I am also a sculpture of the West. I place my mark and do not hide.”  As a Eastern person, Noguchi wanted  everything as natural as possible, but as an western person Noguchi made cuts and designs. One of Noguchi free standing  sculpture  is “ To intrude on natures ways” . This sculpture is made from basalt, and it  represents abstract art, non-representational work of art. This piece is one, but also three, The shape of the art work is not define, but we are able to see a back and front side, there is Dynamic activity because the work changes as the spectator moves through space and time.The sculpture doesn’t follow a pattern, The sculpture is subtractive because the material was carved and molded to create the form and divide the sculpture into three parts   each with  specific cuts that creates some negative space in between the edges. As a Eastern person, Noguchi kept the natural colors of the stone, different colors, some of yellow, light/dark  brown and some gray. As a Western person Noguchi decided to make specific cuts in the stone. The texture of the sculpture is rough, but at the same time is smooth.We are also able to observed a square base and under a  wood base.

          Outside the museum in the garden, we are able to find another free standing sculpture “The well” made of stone ,which represents another abstract art. This sculpture is  also subtractive, because the material is carved to create shape. Dynamic Activity also plays on important role on this work of art because as I move through time/ space I’m able to see the changes of the work. We can also see some negative space in Noguchi signature in the lower level of the sculpture.  Value is extremely important because the sculpture has natural light, and as we get closer we are able to see our reflections in the water. The sculpture also has rough and smooth actual texture.  Thinking back to his life,  Noguchi couldn’t get more opposite with this sculpture. The sculpture has different kinds of geometric shapes there is a circle, square, pentagon and there  is also sharp and round edges. There is water that comes in, and water that comes out.  The sculpture is cover all with water and right next to it there is stone in the floor. Noguchi intentionally play with those opposites, on important part of his art was the material that he worked on and how that material represented him in a way.

 In both of Noguchi work of art “ To intrude on natures ways”  and “ The Well”  , we are able to see the contrast between western and Eastern culture. Even though the sculptures represented two different things, both represented him in a way. The fact that Noguchi came from two different backgrounds, strongly impacted his work of art.  In general I really liked his sculptures because they were really unique, and in order to understand them you really had to connect with his personal life. I admired the idea that he never rejected none of the cultures, instead he decided to join them and make unique  abstract art.