Feb. 19 The Noguchi Museum
It has been a long time I am longing for visiting the Noguchi Museum because I have heard so many incredible description and visiting experience from my artists and architects friends. They talked about how amazing collections that the Noguchi Museum has, and they also loved the way how the museum space interacts with the sculptures. However, based on the location is far for me to travel to queens, I have never got a chance to visit there. I am so glad that we made this field trip to the Noguchi museum, and I am thinking to come back again during the weekends.
Firstly, I would like to say although at first the location of the Noguchi museum is the major issue that I feel kind of lazy to travel to, the location is really amazing in my first impression. It located in Astoria, and there are some factories and a Costco in that area. You will never imagined how come there is a fancy museum exists there. I feel the location is also a big factor makes this museum so unique.
After enter the museum, here is another story. The façade of the museum doesn’t really look that much charming as other museums in New York, so I wouldn’t have high expectation when I walked into the museum. However, I was totally wrong. I hold my breath when I was entering the first area. Those sculptures in the area one were just like they were born there. It perfectly fit into the space, and create a magnificent atmosphere of it.
Thirdly, we looked at his marble piece, even I am not a sculptor, I was so surprised how he used this elegant and fancy medium creating a neutral sculpture. His works are not grid as itself, by the sequencing and presenting ways, I could feel the dynamic energy in the air. His works are not quiet. Instead, his work is not only speaking of itself, sculptures are talking to each other in the room. They are alive.
In the second floor, there are some models of his public projects. The Slide Mentra, Intetra Mist Fountain, Society for the Four Arts, Play Mountain, some were built, some were not. I really appreciate how Isamu Noguchi using sculptures in large scale to provoke another meaning of arts.
The Noguchi Museum is like a great book, it matters with one subject, one artist, one space. However, it is incredibly deep into a person’s concepts, life and works. I feel I am in an extraordinary wide scope to see Noguchi’s works here, and I really obsessed with it.