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<td align="center"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Noguchi
with 'The Kiss' by Brancusi</font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">Akari
lights</font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">Isamu
Noguchi with Akari sculptures</font></td>
<td align="center"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Couch
1948, Herman Miller</font></td>
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<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">Isamu Noguchi
is on record as saying that for him art and design should be regarded
as interchangeable terms, and the exhibition</font><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">
<b>Isamu Noguchi: Sculptural Design</b> manages to introduce us this
idea through a displaying a small selection of his unique output.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">Born in
Los Angeles in 1904 to a Japanese father and American mother, Isamu
Noguchi throughout his life bridged the artistic traditions of the East
and West. In his long career he slipped seemlessly between the worlds
of art, design and architecture producing a huge variety of different
types of work, including domestic objects, sculptures, architectural
monuments, gardens and theatre design. He also worked in collaboration
with many of the 20th century's leading cultural figures, the choreographers
Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, the artists Brancusi and Diego Riviera,
poet Ezra Pound, composer John Cage and visionary engineer Buckminster
Fuller.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">Strongly
influenced both by American modernism and traditional craftsmanship
Noguchi applied his sculptural sensibility to furniture and lighting,
most particularly his modernising of the traditional Japanese paper
lantern. His Akiri paper lantern and subsequent copies became one of
the most omnipresent domestic objects in the last 50 years.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">The Design
Museum's exhibition, designed by the America theatre designer Robert
Wilson, makes the bold move of doing away with signage and labelling,
giving us the immediate impact of encountering the objects themselves
rather than explanations of them. </font><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">This
staging works really well because Noguchi's objects don't set out to
advertise themselves as art, but as interesting, intruiging objects
for the world rather than the gallery.</font></p>
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<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">It would
be easy for the quietness of the works to be overwhelmed by the traditional
exhibition contextualising, but in a world without signposts we find
our way through Noguchi's work by encounters with different materials,
textures and shapes, which is true to Noguchi's own attitude.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">As well
as his famous series of Akari lamps, his furniture, his sculptures and
his models for a huge number of architectural projects, the exhibition
also gives us the unique opportunity to experience some of Noguchi's
stage design work with Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham who he worked
with on some of the most important dance works of the 1950's including
a staging of Copeland's Appalachian Spring. </font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><b>Isamu
Noguchi : Sculptural Design</b> runs from 20 July until the 18 November
2001 at the Design Museum, 28 Shad Thames, London SE1 2YD</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">Admission
(which includes access to the rest of the museum) £5.50 Adults,
£4.50 Students, <br>
£15.00 Family Ticket</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><b>opening
times:</b> 10am-5.45pm Daily. Last Admission 5.15pm<br>
<b>information:</b> 020 7940 8790<br>
</font><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>website:</b>
<a href="http://www.designmuseum.org/"><b>www.designmuseum.org</b></a></font></p>
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