The Museum Ludwig is hosting the first comprehensive retrospective in Europe in over twenty years on the Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (*1904 in Los Angeles, †1988 in New York). It will cover all of Noguchi’s creative periods and practices with 150 works and present him as an experimental and politically engaged artist. The exhibition was organized and curated by the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Zentrum Paul Klee in Berne, and the Barbican in London, in partnership with LaM – Lille Métropole Musée d’art moderne, d’art contemporain et d’art brut. The exhibition would not have been possible without the collaboration of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York. 

Noguchi is a great twentieth-century sculptor, who is often better known for his iconic collaborations and design projects outside the strict domain of the fine arts, such as his coffee table for Hermann Miller, Dance Sets for Martha Graham, and Akari lights. His work was shaped by an expanded conception of sculpture and the question of human beings’ relationship to the earth, as well as his fascination with materials and technology.

Noguchi’s thinking was transgressive, transnational, and radically interdisciplinary in every regard. From the 1920s to the 1980s he created monuments with a political message, light objects, stage sets, playgrounds, and gardens, always in pursuit of the connection between art and everyday life.