When Two Great Sculptors Meet to Explore Historical Consciousness – Noguchi for Danh Vo

Description

Japanese American artist Isamu Noguchi (American, 1904–1988) was perhaps most famous for setting a new standard for the reintegration of twentieth-century arts through his sculptures, furniture, gardens and lighting designs which are at once modern and traditional, bold and subtle. Yet when Danish artist Danh Vo (b. Vietnam, 1975) puts his works in dialogue with Noguchi’s in the exhibition “Isamu Noguchi and Danh Vo: Two Artists in Counterpoint”, he brings a whole new dynamic and understanding to the concepts of human history and displacement.

The exhibition features some of Vo’s experimental works produced between 2010 and 2018, as well as a range of works by Noguchi that spans almost five decades, including industrial design objects, works on paper and sculptures in stone and metal.

Given the artists’ similar artistic backgrounds—one having been inspired by Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour and the other having worked on overlooked history,the exhibition, which places the two together, introduces a heightened sense of historical consciousness to their individual oeuvres.

Moreover, Vo’s contribution to the exhibition bridges two institutions and two cities—M+ in Hong Kong and Noguchi’s museum in New York—and creates a constellation of diverse works that transcends geographical and temporal boundaries.