click opera - A (half) Japanese designer in Queens

December 2009


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	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 10:41 am

A (half) Japanese designer in Queens

The Noguchi Museum in Queens is a really delightful place.

Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) was a Japanese-American designer who spent half his time at his workshop in Queens, the other half in Shikoku, on Japan's Inland Sea. He made organic stone sculpture, gardens, furniture, fountains, funky 70s public monuments, as well as theatre and ballet sets. I mostly went to see his lamps, though, and there are disappointingly few at the museum.

I've been meaning to go to the Noguchi Museum for years, but yesterday was the first day I actually got up the gumption. The garden and the cafe / bookshop were what impressed me most, the garden swaying in sunshine, stirring in the Queens breeze, subtly Japanese, the bookstore full of interesting stuff you could browse while sipping tea (mine came bottled, bought in the Japanese kombini up Astoria Broadway).

In the last few months I've seen two documentaries about Noguchi's life. (The one on show in the museum is amusingly 70s, very loungecore.) One was on French-German network Arte, very crisp, restrained and "designy", with a delicate orientalism; as controlled and dignified as Noguchi's designs, in fact. The other, on Japanese TV, was amazingly tabloidy, with a shouty commentator doing silly voices, lots of text and inset windows on the screen, and flashy, zingy transitions. Here Noguchi was "our man in America", a sort of ambassador for Japanese values, but the Zen spirit of his work was hard to see amidst all the electronic distractions.

cap_scaleman

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 03:17 pm (UTC)

Did he do any kind of Failed Design?

imomus

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 03:38 pm (UTC)

Nice album, Cap, you're really taking "the right to be wrong" into fresh new areas!

cap_scaleman

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 05:37 pm (UTC)

You are so "rightly wrong" there momus, thank you.(I think i got that right 'n' wrong thing right.... Uh, or....)

cap_scaleman

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 05:39 pm (UTC)

By the way, thank you again, and I hope you don't find the song "I tried to write a song" self-depricating or something. Well, yeah, thanks.

dzima

ralf dziminski

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 03:50 pm (UTC)

I was wondering if Classical Bob is going to make a mash-up of your Failed Design, silenceinspades's Intelligently Designed and Alban Berg's Lulu...

cap_scaleman

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 05:37 pm (UTC)

Clasical Bob? Side-show Bob? Bob Drake?

scottbateman

Scott Bateman

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 04:16 pm (UTC)

Is that museum near the 7?

imomus

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 04:29 pm (UTC)

You have to take the N.

lucaskrech

Lucas Krech

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 04:28 pm (UTC)

I love the Noguchi Museum. It is such a serene place in the midst of New York. A welcome break.

bardot

wendypants schmendypants

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 04:29 pm (UTC)

yikes! i remember this place. i used to go there as a kid (i grew up in astoria) and draw. glad you had fun there.

cityramica

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 04:31 pm (UTC)

there's this like....Noguchi business plaza intervention garden thing in Orange County, oriented to seasons and the various aspects of california landscape.... [ http://www.landliving.com/articles/0000000576.aspx ]
my asian art class took a field trip there and i rolled down the grassy hill. then i convinced them we all needed to go to a local ramen-ya. that was probably the best part.

[also, you were in my dream last night, but only via cell phone.]

bklyndispatch

in exile

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 05:20 pm (UTC)

did you hit socrates park while you were out there? There is usually some interesting work happening there...

imomus

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 05:34 pm (UTC)

Yes, and there were some lovely windcups chiming by the shore.

bricology

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 06:49 pm (UTC)

I've always been intrigued by the "Radio Nurse" that Noguchi designed for Zenith back in the 1930s. It was intended to be used as a way for parents to monitor sounds coming from infants in their rooms, and it broadcast whatever it heard to a remote receiver. Noguchi's design is reminiscent of a nurse's head (with the traditional headcovering); I find it both appealing and slightly sinister. Given its form and function, it's utopian and Orwellian at the same time.

Unfortunately, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, many of these expensive devices were destroyed by irate Americans who refused to have anything with a Japanese name on it (the housing said "Noguchi" in tiny letters). Consequently, surviving examples are rare and expensive.

(Anonymous)

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 07:34 pm (UTC)

environments

Very interesting you should go there; I was just poring over
a big coffee-table book of his work at the library. It looks
like a great place to go. While I was looking at the book I
was thinking how his work would have been castigated at the
art school I dropped out of in the late 1980's...not oppositional
enough! mere design!

I haven't seen the Biennial in person;
contrasting the garden environment with your "workspace" must
be interesting...

henryperri
henryperri

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 08:27 pm (UTC)

I think that brown marble donut is the only thing yet to find its way into an ikea catalog

(Anonymous)

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 09:41 pm (UTC)

another donut

another donut found its way into china via koolhass...

http://www.sountain.com/jpg/archives/isamu.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/61/Koolhaas.cctv.jpg/300px-Koolhaas.cctv.jpg

(Anonymous)

	Sat, Apr. 22nd, 2006 09:51 pm (UTC)

Hmmm...looks as if you're making up for the plaster-caster debacle...

imomus

	Sun, Apr. 23rd, 2006 02:55 am (UTC)

I think you could have focused more profitably on Noguchi's groin in the photo I posted... or the phallic sculpture in the bottom righthand photo.

(Anonymous)

	Sun, Apr. 23rd, 2006 02:16 am (UTC)

Back in the USA

I see you were back here in the US. And the Universe Seemed better..,

Check out http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0071994/
Terrible reviews but great movie, why I have not figured that out yet :)

Come to Tampa I can let u stay somewhere.

Darth Kronos

"I am in the midst of a society that is very capitalist, and whose values I completely reject. But I, too, become a capitalist. The problem is that by even dealing with the devil, you become devilish to a certain extent. You need the machine. And once you use it, you are a tainted human being." - Brian De Palma*

lust4death
lust4death

	Sun, Apr. 23rd, 2006 07:17 pm (UTC)

Yeah his stuff is really neat!

I want one of his coffee tables.

(Anonymous)

	Fri, Oct. 5th, 2007 01:39 am (UTC)

My feedback