KORE E Magazine – August 2019

THROWBACK

The Sculptor’s

Dream

Artist, designer, lover, rebel and OG hapa Isamu

Noguchi carved out a Japanese American identity of

mixed heritage where none existed.

TEXT BY SERENA KIM

You know when you see a Noguchi
coffee table. It’s comprised of three
simple components: two vaguely
boomerang-esque wooden pieces
whose pointed ends touch, balancing
an incredibly heavy triangular glass
tabletop. This is the thing that Isamu
Noguchi is most famous for. My entire
life I thought Noguchi was a Japanese
artist and designer who made mod-
ern furniture and huge sculptures for
public spaces and office courtyards. I
was shocked to discover that Noguchi
was actually a Japanese American hapa
born in Los Angeles County Hospital
in 1904 and who lived until 1988.
Back then, a mixed-race baby was
so unusual that the Los Angeles Herald
reported his birth. His father, Yone
Noguchi, a famous Japanese poet, had
loved and left Noguchi’s white Amer-
ican mother, Léonie Gilmour, while
she was still pregnant. She had literary
aspirations and worked as a typist, ste-
nographer and bookkeeper. They lived
in a tent in Pasadena. He never wore
shoes, played in the nearby stream and
went by the name Baby.
When he was around 5, he and his
mom moved to Japan to be closer to
his father, who would then give him
the name Isamu. With his bright green
eyes, Caucasian features and white

mom, little Noguchi did not fit in

with his classmates. Nevertheless, he

absorbed a lot about Japanese culture

and aesthetics and fell in love with

its beautiful countryside. Concerned

that he was too girl-crazy, Noguchi’s

mother found a progressive boarding

school, Interlaken School in Indiana,

and convinced him to apply. He left

Japan by boat alone at the age of 13 to

return to his homeland, America.

By the time World War II rolled

around, Noguchi was a famous and

established artist who hung out with

contemporaries like Constantin Brân-

cusi and Arshile Gorky. His lovers

included Frida Kahlo and Tara Pan-

dit, the niece of Jawaharlal Nehru, the

prime minister of India. He was briefly

married to the movie star Yoshiko

Yamaguchi. Inspired by Diego Rivera,

he created a huge steel mural for the

Associated Press that reflected the

noble work of everyday journalists. He

designed stage sets for the legendary

modern dancer and choreographer

Martha Graham. Noguchi was hard-

working, brilliant and passionate

about social justice. He used his art

to question imperialism, nationalism

and capitalism.

When Executive Order 9066 was

issued, he reached out to the Japanese

American community and organized to

improve their war-torn reputation. He

mistakenly thought that internment

could be an opportunity to design a

utopian community and volunteered

to enter a concentration (terminology

intended) camp in Poston, Arizona, to

help prepare for the incoming intern-

ees. But the internees regarded him

with distrust because he seemed to be

part of the administration. Meanwhile,

the authorities thought Noguchi was

just another Japanese internee, never

implemented his plans, and refused to

let him leave. In his seventh month of

imprisonment, he managed to obtain

a letter from a government official

allowing him a leave of absence, and he

never returned to the camp.

The sculptures he made after his

internment were embittered and

desolate, such as a thick column,

festooned with wooden dowels and

human bones, and a hanging African

American man writhing in agony.

Throughout his life, he felt completely

alone and struggled to find a commu-

nity not just among artists but also the

Nisei, spiritual seekers and whoever

didn’t fit in with the rest of society.

Restless, he traveled all over the world

and absorbed various artistic tradi-

tions in Greece, India and Southeast

Asia. Most of his art, which was con-

stantly shifting in medium and style,

was about interrogating the duality of

his identity: East versus West; East and

West; East or West.

His profound loneliness led him to

find solace in his quiet and contem-

plative artworks made of stone, like

the serene Noguchi Garden in Costa

Mesa, Calif., and reflected a movement

towards the reconciliation of both

identities. I think that he discovered—

as many Asian Americans do about

belonging and not quite belonging to

two diametrically opposed worlds—

that the cause of his greatest pain was

precisely the source of his power.

HEAVY METAL Noguchi

rests against his 22-foot tall,

cast stainless steel bas-relief

sculpture News (1940),

for the main entrance of

Rockefeller Center. Photo

courtesy of Underwood

Archives/Getty Images.

CM