Join us for a virtual presentation by Matt Kirsch, Curator of Research and Digital Content, exploring Isamu Noguchi’s tendency to repurpose abandoned stones, quarry fragments, and byproducts from his sculpting process into new creations. This talk is a complement to the exhibition Salvaged Time currently on view at The Noguchi Museum. 

By the 1960s, through exposure to quarries and stone yards in Italy, Greece, and Japan, and with a greater understanding of stone’s shaping by nature and time and its transformation through industrial processing, Noguchi gradually internalized the life of stone, readily accommodating “the accidents of its being and making” into his own sculptural processes.

This presentation will highlight works installed as part of Salvaged Time, and examples of Noguchi’s creative re-use of stone throughout the Museum’s galleries; as part of the environment at his studio in Mure, Japan; and in landscape projects throughout his career. 

A recording of this talk will be available afterwards by request to events@noguchi.org. This topic is also explored in Kirsch’s digital feature article Salvaged Time.