|
 |  | | ||||||||||||||||||||
BELLINGHAM – Joining the national celebration of the centennial of Isamu Noguchi’s birth, the Western Gallery at Western Washington Universitywill present a two-part exhibition on the world-renowned artist from April 4 to June 10. Never-before seen photographs taken by Noguchi, as well as dance inspired by his on-campus sculpture, “Skyviewing,” comprise the exhibition. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, except Wednesday when the gallery is open until 8 p.m., and noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. The exhibition is free and open to the public. Noguchi: The Bollingen Journey Photographs 1949-1956 will be on display for the first time outside of Japan or the Noguchi Museum (Long Island City, New York.) In the early years after WWII, Noguchi decided to step away from his celebrated and successful career as an artist in order to study"leisure." In 1949, Noguchi applied for a travel grant from the Bollingen Foundation to, in his words, “study the physical environment of leisure… its meaning, its use and its relationship to society.” The artist’s photographs of his travels through Europe, Egypt, India, Southeast Asia and Japan provide a visual diary of how various cultures have perceived leisure time and space, especially the “contemplative uses of leisure.” Noguchi noted that in the post-war world, burgeoning industrialization along withdiminishing religious expression signaled “a renewed search for the meaning of existence, a re-creative process which demands the utmost from artists of every kind in order to build an environment equal to our needs.” His study tour ultimately led Noguchi to create contemporary sculpture that would be meaningful to a broad spectrum of people. His journey and photographs of world famous architecture, monumental sculpture and parks and gardens as well as villages, rituals and art forms provided fertile fodder for his future work. Today, Noguchi’s photographs provide a record of people, lifestyles and places that no longer exist as they once did, including images of two historic sites in Southeast Asia that were damaged in the Dec. 26 tsunami: Mahabalipuram, a coastal sanctuary founded in the seventh century; and the 13th century Sun Temple of Koranak on the shore of the Bay of Bengal. Noguchi and Dance focuses on Noguchi’s interdisciplinary creations, particularly his desire to create designs for dance – a type of environment with spatial and spiritual dynamics. Noguchi had a long relationship with the Martha Graham Dance Company, resulting in extraordinary stage sets over a 30-year period. The “Noguchi and Dance” exhibition will demonstrate the relationship among Noguchi’s stage sets, sculpture and furniture designs. For example, the exhibition will highlight his models for his “Skyviewing Sculpture,” on display in WWU’s Red Square since 1969. This sculpture was influenced by a photograph of an East Indian observatory (captured on film during his Bollingen Journey) as well as a dance set Noguchi designed for Graham’s company. The stage set itself will be seen in a large scale DVD of the dance company. Exemplifying Noguchi as a paradigm of an artistic creativity in the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary context, and demonstrating his continual global influence, there will also be in large-scale format a DVD of Western’s own dance group utilizing the “Skyviewing Sculpture” as a stage set. The first-ever Bollingen Journey exhibition was organized by curator Bonnie Rychlak for the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum. The Western Gallery, under director Sarah Clark-Langager, organized the “Noguchi and Dance” exhibition. The Western Gallery exhibitions are funded, in part, by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the Homer B. Mathes Endowment Fund. For more information, please contact Western Gallery director Sarah Clark-Langager at (360) 650-3963, Sarah.ClarkLangager@wwu.edu or visit the Gallery’s Web site at http://westerngallery.wwu.edu/. For a parking permit or information, please stop at the south campus Visitor Center, open from 7:15 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays. There is a $2 hourly charge for parking from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. No permit is required in (south campus) gravel C lots between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m. weekdays, or on weekends. There is a $1 an hour charge for parking after 5 p.m. and on weekends in designated lots, which have blue machines that accept cash, coins, or credit/debit cards. There is no additional charge in these lots for those displaying a valid parking pass or a Viking XPress bus pass, with the exception of lot 6V (Viking Union) where payment is required at all times. Parking meters at various campus locations cost $2 an hour, 24 hours/7 days. |
| |||||||||||||||||||||
|
University Communications Office | Contact UComm Copyright © 2001-2003, Western Washington University. All rights reserved. |
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| | | ||||||||||||||||||||
| | | ||||||||||||||||||||