Marking the 75th anniversary of Akari, this exhibition explores the enduring significance of Isamu Noguchi’s pioneering light sculptures.
Isamu Noguchi created his first paper and bamboo light sculptures during a 1951 visit to Gifu that inspired him to reimagine the possibilities of traditional Japanese chochin lanterns. While Noguchi maintained their handmade collapsible structure, he equipped his new lights with innovatively shaped shades, electric light bulbs, and modern wire bases.
Over the following three decades, he produced more than 200 distinct models of these radiant forms. He named them Akari–the Japanese word for “light,” which to Noguchi evoked both illumination and weightlessness. Yet, as he insisted, “Akari is no ordinary light.” He understood each model as a “luminous sculpture” that “comes to life in how it is shown, in how it is in relation to people’s lives and in relation to the environment in which it is placed.”