January 15, 2024

Feeling part of a space through the light that is cutting the walls.

To feel the silence and the echo of peace.

Although what you have in front of you are some kind of giant totems carved in stone and not plants, you feel a soft and flowing energy, which is somehow paradoxical.

These pieces and many others are part of the Noguchi Museum in New York, a venue he founded during the last years of his life, where you can appreciate the different forms of art he explored in his career.

It took me just a moment to get there and feel the calm.

It took me several days to digest everything I saw. I couldn’t stop reading about Isamu Noguchi and his vision. Everything I found about him left me more and more fascinated.

Beyond his artistic perspective, I felt embraced by his life. His mother being American and his father Japanese, Noguchi was born in Los Angeles and lived in several cities, including Japan, Indiana, Connecticut, Paris, and New York. It is in the latter where he planted his roots, and for years he had one of his studios on a small street near Washington Square in Manhattan.

Speaking of complex identities, Noguchi teaches me how feeling like a citizen of the world is a daily exercise.

He made me reflect about the existing possibility to develop as an artist and use different cities as a canvas to create and, in turn, to create oneself as an individual.

Living in different places and discovering yourself in them teaches me that the task of exploring your roots and finding yourself in others never ends and that the satisfaction of translating that process into different creations is wonderful.

His artistic legacy is a spectacular cover. His life story is even more so.

And that's what you perceive in this place.

A life full of exploration, of many cultures, and of art that adapts into different lifetimes.

A museum full of energy and teachings that leave you wanting to return.