noguchi's fascination with greece highlighted in new book by objects of common interest

Noguchi and Greece, Greece and Noguchi

The book ‘Noguchi and Greece, Greece and Noguchi’ offers a fascinating exploration of Isamu Noguchi’s relationship with Greece, as well as his significant contributions to the country’s creative community, history, and culture. Through a captivating visual essay comprising letters, photographs, sketches, and words from the artist himself, this two-volume box set illuminates the profound connection that Noguchi shared with the country, revealing his longstanding fascination with the Mediterranean nation and the enduring legacy he left behind.

Edited by Ananda Pellerin, and Greece- and New York-based studio Objects of Common Interest (OoCI), this volume offers a fresh perspective on Noguchi’s bond with Greece. OoCI has written the introduction and contributed to the book, along with other esteemed authors such as Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Hsiao-Yun Chu, Dakin Hart, Isamu Noguchi, Nicolas Paissios, and Jannis Varelas. Additionally, a series of responsive texts and artworks by OoCI accompanies the book, extending the research and exhibition project that was initiated with the Noguchi Museum in New York. The book is co-published by Atelier Éditions and D.A.P. and was released on May 9th, 2023.

Isamu Noguchi, Kyoko Kawamura, and Nikos Kouroussis with the Omphalos stone in Delphi, Greece, 1988. The Noguchi Archives, 143879. ©INFGM/ARS (head image: Isamu Noguchi in Greece, 1988. Photo: Martha Swope. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 03889. ̋ The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS) / Photo by Martha Swope ̋ The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts)

shedding light on Noguchi’s internationalist perspective

‘Noguchi and Greece, Greece and Noguchi’ (find more here) spotlights the continuing influence of Greek art, design, and evolving cultural identity on Noguchi’s internationalist perspective. New essays delve into Noguchi’s fruitful collaborations with dancers and choreographers inspired by Greece, including the innovative American choreographer Martha Graham, and the gradual development of Noguchi’s truly interdisciplinary practice. The publication also includes a meditation on Noguchi’s transformative relationship with the maverick architect Buckminster Fuller, who saw in Noguchi the worldling he was, and provides a portrait of Noguchi, who was already an accomplished traveler before he began his explorations in Greece.

The collaborative publication also includes Noguchi’s Greece-centered works in sculpture, design, and architecture, as well as a series of texts and artworks by the contemporary design studio Objects of Common Interest, and a series of photographs by current artists inspired by Noguchi’s interdisciplinary legacy. 

Yoshiko ‘Shirley’ Yamaguchi at the Parthenon, Acropolis, Athens, Greece, 1955. Photo: Isamu Noguchi. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 08270.1. ©INFGM/ARS

‘As Greek designers and architects living and working in New York we share with Noguchi the in-betweenness of two worlds. Our cultural split, like his, lies within the essence of our work. We have long been intrigued by Noguchi and have informally researched him for some time.’ shares the team at Objects of Common Interest. 

‘As Noguchi’s friend R. Buckminster Fuller wrote, ‘Isamu traveled on and on … as the intuitive artist precursor of the evoluting, kinetic one-town world man.’ Noguchi first became acquainted with Greece through the classical myths his writer mother read to him and later on through his own travels. As Noguchi told it, “I started a custom of stopping in Greece on my various trips to and from Japan. There I had found a worker who could block out simple forms in Penteli marble which I could work on later in New York.’

‘This feature unfolds the significant connection between Noguchi and Greece that goes well beyond the artist’s quest for the country’s magical white marble, tapping into the transformative relationship between him, the place, and its people. A place he was initially introduced to through mythology but later discovered so personally that he once described it as his ‘intellectual home.”

Isamu Noguchi with Kouros (1945) at the exhibition Fourteen Americans, Museum of Modern Art, New York, September 10, 1946–December 8, 1946. Photo: Eliot Elisofon. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 04336. ©INFGM/ARS

Aris Konstantinidis, Myconos Chapels, 1953. Photograph. Archive of Aris Konstantinidis

Isamu Noguchi. Akari 24N, undated. Photo: Michio Noguchi. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 03498. © The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Objects of Common Interest exploration at The Noguchi Museum, 2021. Photo : OoCI. Works by Isamu Noguchi © The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Isamu Noguchi, Bird C (Mu), 1958. Greek marble. Photo: Rudolph Burckhardt. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 01781. É The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Objects of Common Interest exploration at The Noguchi Museum, 2021. Photo : OoCI. Works by Isamu Noguchi É The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

the cover of ‘Noguchi and Greece, Greece and Noguchi’ | image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P.

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Isamu Noguchi learning the Zeibekiko, a greek folk dance, at a tavern in Delphi, Greece | image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

Isamu Noguchi, Katerina Koskina and Yannis Tsarouchis in a taverna at Delphi | image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

Yiannis Tsarouchis wearing a monk's robe photographed by Andrea Embeiriko | image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

Isamu Noguchi, costume and set study for George Balanchine’s Orpheus (1948) | image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

Isamu Noguchi, Study in the Classical, 1958. Greek marble | image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

image courtesy of Atelier Éditions and D.A.P

project info: 

name: Noguchi and Greece, Greece and Noguchi

edited by: Ananda Pellerin, Objects Of Common Interest

introduction by: Objects Of Common Interest

text by: Diane Apostolos-cappadona, Hsiao-yun Chu, Dakin Hart, Isamu Noguchi, Nicolas Paissios, Jannis Varelas
co-published by: Atelier Éditions and D.A.P.