Author's Comments: Noguchi ©1999 Red Slider

NOGUCHI: The Man Who Entered Stone

Thank you for visiting this presentation of 'Noguchi, The Man Who Entered Stone'. I hope that you will have had an enjoyable and informative reading experience. If you are already familiar with the subject, I can only hope that some of the works in this show have enriched your sense and understanding of this remarkable man and his gifts. If you are coming to the subject for the first time (as I did when I began this project) then it is effort well spent if the poems and images have piqued your interest enough to look further into the work of this American sculptor who has so skillfully and brilliantly described a new potential for future human space. Even at this early stage of my involvement with the subject I am convinced that it will take several generations to fully appreciate the scope and importance of Noguchi's contribution to the history of ideas as well as to art.

Poem biography is riddled with complexity and difficulty - much of which I am still trying to master as I go. It remains a discussion for another time. I will note that, while it shares much in common with general biography and other historical treatments, it is fundamentally different. Where other approaches are essentially discursive and descriptive, the more significant contribution of the poetic treatment of the subject lies in its faculty to embrace the subject rather than to simply describe or synthesize its material. This is not to diminish the importance of academic and formal treatments of historical figure, but to complement those perspectives by treating materials that simply cannot be approached in any other way. If that were not so, then I could see no rationale for the poetic at all.

It was fortuitous and entirely accidental that I was inspired to attempt this holistic method through exposure to the work of a sculptor; in particular, a sculptor who intended us to explore and imagine his work rather than merely confront it. What better subject than one whose very form requires the viewer/interpreter to engage it from a multiplicity of views; to surround it, to discover its tactile and textural properties, to walk it until it has been physically measured with one's own bones and musculature and, to literally consider it from within and without. In short, to embrace it.

Noguchi, himself, invites us to do just that. Even his small, showroom exhibits are not meant to be passively regarded but to draw the imagination and the body into direct dialog with the subject. His Biomorphs are animated, his earthworks are meant to be scaled, his playparks to induce laughter through sheer physicality, his dance & theatrical sets to define the audience as one focus of mobile stage, his akari to illuminate the dynamic life of light itself, and his monuments to bring the visitor into a circle of healing relations as an active celebrant. In his 'Sculpture to be Seen from Mars' (unrealized) we are not merely invited to think about how Martians might regard the human face from their remote station or the isolate human caricature herself in the desolate landscape of some post-habitable earth, but to climb its features, to stand on its brow and consider our own faces turned skyward to faces turned earthward in an infinite game of recognitions over time and distance.

To Noguchi, there was no greater enemy to his work than distance. Huge though the scale of some of his projects were, their most striking feature is always their intimacy. His monument to the plow is not simply a paean to the central theme of American life. It was intended to be a living monument, the sloped sides being rotationally planted each season to literally give the impression of a giant moving plow. It didn't get that far (for the moment), but I can only imagine that when someone does come along with the vision and boldness to actually build it, they will certainly consider including the viewers in the actual planting and cultivating of its slopes and, perhaps, in carrying away some of the product of its fields to consume at their own tables. This is sculpture not only on a monumental scale, but in such intimate contact with its visitors that they could hardly be excluded from being an integral part of the work itself.

One can go on, through each of Noghuchi's works and so-called 'periods'. In the future, in poem and image, I hope to do exactly that. At least to provide a sufficient sampling of the inseparability that was his life and his work such that readers may be able to embrace a wider expression of this man not available in any other form. In the meantime, I invite you to visit the Noguchi Garden Museum website, which offers a good deal more material than the small sample here. It is And, finally, to enter the poems and images on the pages in this presentation with a sense of play and personal relation which Noguchi seems to have invited us all to invoke.

On The Show:

This 'biography of Noguchi' is an ongoing project that I expect may continue for sometime into the future. During its stay at Bigbridge, I anticipate that a number of new pieces will be added to this collection. I invite you to periodically check the 'cover page' for a 'New Works' notice or the 'master index' page to see what additional works may have been installed. You will also find on the cover page a 'credits and acknowledgments' section to those who have generously encouraged and assisted the project. There are also behind-the-scenes 'poet's walks' that will appear on some of the poem and cover pages in the form of a footprint. These backstage walkways are under construction and for several weeks their path will likely be a bit littered with debris. Your browser's 'back button' should get you out of any difficulty. I apologize, but then what artist hasn't experienced greeting the first visitors on opening day with a handshake of one hand and a staple-gun in the other? Its no different here (and it looks like a long night ahead). Simply put, whatever credit there is, goes to Michael Rothenberg and all the people who helped and encouraged me to do this job. Whatever shortcomings there are, are mine alone (often as not, because I didn't heed someone else's good advice).

On the Project:

I began the project last April largely due to Michael's encouragement. A few months earlier I had sent him (Bigbridge Press) a work that I thought he might use in his next online issue. He asked to see more, and I sent him another. He asked for still more, but I had nothing to send that I thought would be appropriate for his venue. Then I remembered the Noguchi works I had just started. I sent him those sketches and said I hoped to do some more.

The first piece, which eventually took the shape of the present 'Stone Above, Sky Below' was the result of a purely 'accidental' exposure to Noguchi. I had been watching the network news. It had gotten to the stage that I expected, at any moment, to be treated to Lewinski dental x-rays. Things had gone far enough . I flipped to the local PBS channel and into the middle of "Paper and Stone", a documentary on Noguchi and his work. Like a script from "Butch Cassidy" I heard myself saying, "Who is that guy? Who is that guy?" and, a few minutes later, I found myself sketching some short pieces.

A couple days later Michael replied to my submissions, "so do you want me to do a noguchi thing with you or do you want me to publish a couple of poems, i like the noguchi deal, it sounds compelling,…" I wasn't at all sure what I was getting into, but I replied in the affirmative ('the noguchi deal' sounded like a new dance step to me). Michael confirmed his interest and a couple of weeks later I wondered why I had agreed so quickly. I had the sinking feeling I was in for a 'pound(ing)'.

I've no doubt that several years, perhaps more, remain to complete the project of which this presentation is only the first installment. What exists now has only the barest platform of what scant research material was immediately available to me. The primary sources - other than the writings of his father and Noguchi's own sketchy biographical notes - I have yet to inspect. Indeed, I have never even seen a Noguchi sculpture, other than in photographs and film. This, of course needs to be remedied in the future for the project to continue. The difficulty is that Noguchi's work is scattered all over the planet, with his principle papers and archives located in New York, about 3000 miles away from me. In time, perhaps, this deficiency will be remedied and the deeper insights required to advance the project acquired.

The one caveat I make is that, even though I've not viewed any of his sculptures first-hand (which some art historians might view as mildly blasphemous for one who would pretend to write anything interesting about his work), the practice of poetry does train and expect one to be able to traverse otherwise impossible distances through the sole use of language and a few simple cognitive faculties. As a poet, that's one's job. Whether it makes up for the deficiencies of first-hand experience, at this stage, I leave for readers to judge. Noguchi, himself, seems to offer the greatest help over that impasse. Throughout his work and his writing, the sculptor seems to advise that one capture the essence of his project through a ready sense of play and an active imagination. Time and again I have found Noguchi on Noguchi to demonstrate that procedure as I gather glimpses of him regarding his own work.

At any rate, I am glad to have the opportunity, technology and an encoraging publisher to be able to present what I hope are works that will illuminate the subject and advance it a little for a new millennia and a new generation of appreciators.

Till then,

Red Slider January, 2000