Katsumi Nakai, Hiraku 54 Osaka, 1981.
Luxembourg + Co., New York, is pleased to announce the opening of Noguchi / Nakai an exhibition of works by Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) and Katsumi Nakai (1927-2013) across the gallery’s space in the Fuller Building and its Stand C1 at the ADAA’s The Art Show.
Innovators in the field of sculpture, the two artists operated on opposite sides of the Atlantic but shared an aspiration to translate their Japanese cultural heritage into a new geographic context. Taking Noguchi’s seminal work Seen and Unseen of 1962 as a gateway to discover the work of Katsumi Nakai, the proposed display will focus on the importance of veiling and unveiling as artistic strategies that underline both of these practitioners’ work. Moreover, the display will also point towards the significance of Japanese craft traditions such as origami, interior design, and garden landscaping within this context.
American born Isamu Noguchi spent most of his youth in Japan, before returning to the United States as a teenager. Having trained and studied in several institutions and artists’ studios in the States, he then travelled to Paris where he apprenticed as a sculptor with Constantin Brancusi before finally returning to New York and establishing his own studio. His point of view as a mature artist later retained the tension of his multinational identity, particularly in the aftermath of the Second World War, and came to expression in his search to reinterpret traditional motifs of Japanese craft using the language of European and North American modern art.