A Living Mechanism: The Noguchi Museum Staff Exhibition 2023

1000 Horsepower Heart Isamu Noguchi, c.1938

A Living Mechanism

Orlando Lacro and Shamysia Waterman Curators

From the depth of time-consuming hardness to find the lasting and essential, by using modern tools on the oldest medium, there is an attempt to push the discovery of sculpture onward a notch.

What inner workings in your life deserve a moment to shine?

Believing in a collective effort throughout his entire career, Isamu Noguchi’s widespread artistic endeavors ranged from interning under Constantin Brancusi, to creating set designs for Martha Graham, to designing furniture with Herman Miller, and so on. As The Noguchi Museum came into creation there were many figures that were in the process like Shoji Sadao and Masatoshi Izumi, just to name a few. Even during the later years of Noguchi’s life he became reliant on his right hand man and carving assistant, Masami Sasao, as well as Priscilla Morgan, personal manager of Noguchi who guided some of his best business decisions.

When the opportunity to create A Living Mechanism presented itself, the goal was to draw inspiration from The Noguchi Museum’s mission to remain a place for the exploration of individual artistic endeavor and creative collaboration through exposure to Noguchi’s wide-ranging practice. As two frontfacing staff curate the exhibition, there is a desire to remain current by listening and giving space to those that help support The Noguchi Museum’s existence. The conceptual approach became The Noguchi Museum as a sculpture itself, with its staff as the instruments that transform the work into a beautiful art piece. The instrument is in symbiosis with the art piece itself, much like the staff are an ineffable part of the museum.

Isamu Noguchi, The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum (1987)

Barbara Leven

STATEMENT

Since childhood, I have sought to create images and avidly studied art. Photography is my preferred medium. Through the viewfinder, I look for things I have never seen before; to see the significance and beauty in the ordinary, and the spiritual in the material.

Photography is like collecting. Only I am collecting images of nature, urban dilapidation, vibrant streets and people and more recently the city’s growing monumental architecture.

BIO

Leven has won awards including a First Place–Outstanding Achievement Award In Nature from the Photography Masters Cup in 2011, a First Place in “Botanicals” from Light Space and Time Art Gallery in 2015, and was shortlisted in the Sony World Photography Awards Professional Category Nature and Wildlife in 2012. Her work is also represented in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; and The Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio.

barbaraleven.com

bleven48@gmail.com

Queensboro Bridge

Archival pigment print on Epson

Velvet Fine Art Paper

iPhone 13 Pro 16 x 12 in. (24 x 20 in. framed)

$1100

Cayla Blachman STATEMENT

The fire series contemplates the destruction of the familiar, and through sumptuous materiality, its beauty, as well.

BIO

Cayla Blachman is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in drawing and painting. Their work examines ideas of home, the body and the self, breaking these down into fragments. In doing so, they analogize our experiences with these concepts to moments, places, ecologies, and emotions. Working with traditional media such as charcoal and oil paint, they draw from this experience of selfhood, negotiating with the various vessels and structures that contain ( hold ) us. Caught between nostalgia, obscurity, and intimacy, Blachman dissociates the viewer from the subject, at once drawing them in, in pursuit of some greater evocation.

Cayla Blachman earned their BA in Studio Art and Art History from Wesleyan University in 2019. Originally from Los Angeles, they have been based in New York City since graduating. They currently work at The Noguchi Museum and Alison Bradley Projects, in addition to their studio practice and freelance art writing.

cayla.blachman@gmail.com @cayla.bb

fire (i), fire (ii), fire (iii), fire (iv) Charcoal and pastel on paper, framed 16 x 16 in.

$250 each or $900 for the set

STATEMENT

Found objects in this room tell a part of that story from the shop-bought postcards that are returned to us when they cannot be delivered (maybe one day yours will end up back here) to the chemical canister that was found in the walls dating back to when the building was a photo engraving plant in the 1930s.

You are welcome to take one of the pieces of paper associated with this piece. You will see a list of ambiguous clues about the museum’s folklore and will need to ask staff to find the location. A portion of these are for staff only and exist in locations that are not available to the public. Some staff members will know the history, some will know nothing, some will be able to recount first hand experiences while others may give inaccurate information based on multiple retellings. This piece was compiled through the accounts of many staff members and cannot be credited to one person.

Unarchived Museum Objects

Danielle Draik

BIO

Danielle Draik is a multimedia, traditional artist born and raised in Queens, NY. Heavily laden in the occult, Danielle’s focus is on the idea of “high strangeness,” paranormal occurrences, folklore, the idea of interdimensional consciousness and how these themes culturally permeate everyday life. Developing a visual language of basic shapes and light reactive materials, their work operates as a changing tool for communication; an inherent sentience in an object that moves and follows an interpretive narration.

They received their BFA from SUNY FIT in Fine Arts with a focus on sculpture.

danielledraik.com

@artofddraik

dmc_finearts@yahoo.com

Instructions (Five and Six) Acrylic on plaster slab, cradled in reclaimed wood

18.25 x 23.5 in.

Price upon request

Harumi Ori STATEMENT

For nearly 21 years, I've been working on a sculpture series that reproduces the space and time of a single moment, titled I am Here. Each piece begins the same way: observing my “living subject,” capturing the scene, and flattening it through photography. Next, these moments are translated into sculpture using an industrial plastic mesh in orange, a holy color in my native country of Japan. This unusual material creates a beautiful effect. Layered folds convincingly render the shape and volume of people and their surroundings, and as the pieces come together, the connections between individuals and groups, and the streets, buildings, and landscapes they pass through and share, are further revealed. It is the beauty of these relationships that I wish to express the unique and sacred significance of singular moments, and the space each one “owns.” When the pieces are finished, they are titled with the place, exact time, and date of the moment captured.

BIO

Harumi Ori was born in Kyoto, Japan. Ori moved to New York in 1999 to study at the School of Visual Arts. Her sculptures, based on photographs she’s taken at various public sites, deal with themes of time, existence, and diversity. Ori has had several solo shows at the Karuizawa New Art Museum; Whitestone Gallery, Japan; Artup, New York; Ise Cultural Foundation, New York; and the Queens Museum of Art. She has completed numerous artist residencies and her work is included in the permanent collections of Facebook and MetLife. Her work has been highlighted by the New York Times, Casa Brutus, and on NY1. Ori lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Jared Friedman

BIO

Jared Friedman was born in New York City in 1988. Friedman finds tenderness in an illogical machinemade world through closely observed paintings of inanimate objects rendered on canvas, AstroTurf, and rug. His practice confronts the ambiguity between admiration and apathy in overlooked spaces, such as the vent beneath a subway seat or the underbelly of a defunct refrigerator. By animating the inanimate he questions our understanding of sentimentality. Friedman received his BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2010. He recently received his MFA in Studio Art at Hunter College in 2023. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

jaredpfriedman.com

thejaredfriedman@gmail.com

Withdrawal (Automated Teller Machine 1)

Acrylic and colored gesso on AstroTurf

21 x 21 in.

$2600

Jen Blaine

BIO

Jennifer Blaine is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in New York City. She is an MFA candidate at Hunter College with expected graduation in December 2024. She completed the Drawing Intensive at the Royal Drawing School in London, England, and received a BA in Studio Art and BA in Computing in the Arts from the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. She is the founder of Beforehand Publishing, a DIY publishing press specialising in limited run artist books and prints.

@jenniferleighblaine jenleighblaine@gmail.com

Aestas

Graphite and acrylic on muslin, ceramic tile, and wood

19.5 x 15.25 x 2 in.

Joe Tokumasu Field

BIO

Joseph Tokumasu Field was born in Manhasset, New York and studied art history with Dr. Lewis Kachur at Kean and earned a Masters from Richmond in London. He has worked in New York City as museum educator for over a decade currently teaching at The Noguchi Museum and Barnes Foundation.

Drawing from his archive of music ephemera, Field presents the iconic Rising boombox as an instrument, a tool of war and an essential element of the culture to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of hip hop and coincide with this exhibition. A special audio mix can be accessed from the QR code on the front of the work.

The Zero Hour, 2023

Silver “20-20” Rising boombox

Manufactured in Japan, c. 1984

16 x 24 x 7 in.

Space Travel Serial, 2023

Audio

Jonathan Glass

BIO

Jonathan Glass is a fine artist/illustrator who specializes in drawing live concert sketches in real time. Since college, Jonathan has had the ambition to create drawings that span a good portion of musical history. Through his experiences, Jonathan has expanded his sense of community among many greats, many of whom are friends. At first Jonathan used to go backstage to get autographs and learn about each musicians’ background. His love for jazz expanded as did Jonathan’s album collection. Jonathan prides himself for seeking the acquired tastes in music as well as the popular choices in all genres. While his style evolved with time, Jonathan is always considering pictorial language of musical bodies in movement. This movement is both rhythmic and informed by the music Jonathan listens to. His schooling had achieved the same fluidity whether drawing old folks in nursing homes in Buffalo, or dancers in practice at the Martha Graham Dance School.

Jim Ridl Trio at Deer Head Inn

Robert Glasper’s Dinner Party

Larry Giacoletti

BIO

Undergraduate BFA degree in Painting/Printmaking from Indiana University; MFA in Printmaking/Art History from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. Worked as Assistant Registrar Whitney Museum, and Assistant Registrar at the American Craft Museum (now Museum of Art & Design). Taught at New York University Registration and Collections Management course in the MA program.

larry.factory-h.com

lgiacoletti@gmail.com

Snowfall

Linoleum cut print 6 x 4 in. (12 x 10 in. framed)

Lindy Chiu BIO

Lindy Chiu ( 趙瑩瑩 ) is Chinese-American interdisciplinary artist based in NYC, where she was born and raised. To her, her art is a collective keepsake of her life. Using various mediums, she expresses different aspects of her life: how she feels, where she is, what she sees.

After studying Printmaking and Biology at Binghamton University, she diverged from the premedical path and now works at The Noguchi Museum in Queens, NY, and explores her creative side in the moments that she can through ceramics, illustration, and photography.

l-chiu.com

lindy.z.chiu@gmail.com

Flowerbed Photograph, giclée print from film scan on archival paper

5 x 7 in.

Price upon request

Milly Skellington BIO

Artist living in downtown NYC, from 17 miles south of Hollywood, California.

millyskellington@gmail.com

Solid_As_A_Rock!

Faux thinking machine, flooring from The Noguchi Museum, on panel 34 x 26 x 4 in.

Miwa

Neishi

STATEMENT

“Vanessa” (meaning butterfly in Greek or Venus in Latin) is a small flower vase that sits on top of a separate structure which interlocks a pair of wings. Extended from my usual ceramic practice of making sculptural flower vases, I created this piece as an appreciation of Love, to explore the complexity and interactive aspect that can be attached to a function. I see Noguchi’s artworks as reading poems, with his careful decisions of which material, tools, to be used and marks to be made. I practice with clay, to better reflect what I feel the best to be seen. I am grateful to show my piece of Love here at the museum where I feel invited, welcomed, and protected.

BIO

Miwa Neishi is a Tokyo-born, New York-based artist, whose sculptural works draw inspiration from abstract expressionism, prehistoric clay figures, and Japanese calligraphy. Each one-of-a-kind work is hand-built, and entirely able to function as a water-holding vase, part of the artist’s desire for people to connect with the elemental forms of life—earth and nature—in their homes.

miwa90studio@gmail.com

Vanessa Ceramics and glaze

5 x 5 x 5 in.

$850

STATEMENT

This particular piece written in Filipino Baybayin, it translates to:

The land I was born in, does not want me. (USA) The land of my blood and ancestors, does not want me. (Philippines)

I am only cradled by the arms of my ancestors. I always walk with those who came before me, and those who come after me.

BIO

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area (currently living in New York). I received my MA in Exhibition and Museum Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute as well as a BA in Painting and Printmaking from San Jose State University. My art and writing is an ever evolving investigation of understanding my narrative of the FilipinoAmerican experience. Coping with the experience of my own degrading mental and physical health has been a primary influence on the production of my art making process.

orlandolacro.com

@orlandos_sarisaristore olacro@hotmail.com

Orlando Lacro

i have no home Mixed media on wood panel 14 x 11 x 1 in.

Patricia Abrego

BIO

Patricia is an artist, art historian and art educator. She is an alum of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music, Art and Performing Arts, and graduated from Hunter College with a Bachelor’s in both Fine Arts and Art History. Currently, she focuses on public art programs for youth audiences in English and Spanish across various art institutions in New York City.

Her work is inspired by her emotions, with references to her health struggles, her Hispanic heritage, and her home borough of Queens.

abregoartwork.com

@abregoartwork

abregoartwork@gmail.com

Metas

Acrylic and color pencil on panel 7 x 5 in.

Quinn Chen

BIO

Quinn Chen (they/them) grew up surrounded by the rocky cliffs, abalone shells, and cold rolling fog of Ohlone land in the California Bay Area. Their mother taught them how to sew as a child, an experience that lends their sartorial practice a playful and dreamy sensibility. Their interdisciplinary artistic practice often involves clothing making, sculpture, performance arts, writing, among others. Their work is influenced heavily by friends and lovers, ancestry and ghosts, as well as a desire to create work away from extractive art institutions.

They currently live in Ridgewood, Queens, and work for the arts nonprofit yáo collaborative in their time away from The Noguchi Museum.

Listening Device

2021

Metal, silk, photo paper

Dimensions variable

Shamysia Waterman (Mutant)

STATEMENT

As Mutant, my personal artwork reflects spectral, nebulous, and paradisiacal universes that are accessible and represented through different mediums. Nix is accompanied as a title image for an EP album based on experimental sounds.

BIO

Shamysia Waterman is a spirited individual with a kaleidoscope background that contains museum work and experiemental art. They have worked in highly renowned art institutions such as The Whitney Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and most recently, The Noguchi Museum.

They have done public facing work, curating, and exhibition handling. Working with and around art gives them the ability to continuously answer the yearning curiousities that lie within.

mutatedfairy@gmail.com

Nix

2020

Photograph of acrylic on adhesive

Print on Plexiglass, silver frame

20 x 30 in.

Price upon request

Shane Harrington

STATEMENT

This work deals with mental health, perseverance and how creativity can flourish in the wake of destruction/ collapse. Something awful can lead to something revelatory and vice versa.

BIO

Shane Harrington is an artist/musician from Ireland. He graduated with honors from Limerick School of Art & Design in 2009, where his thesis DIY Counter Culture received the highest grade in the college’s 150-year history. Harrington has worked at Ormston House, Eva Biennial and was a member of LIKE Studios in Limerick, Ireland. He moved to New York in 2012 where he became the Assistant Gallery Director at Station Independent Projects in the Lower East Side from 2012 to 2017. Harrington curated a group show of local and international Irish artists titled Irish Art Does Not Exist in 2014 and a follow-up show of international artists titled Kenosis In The Supervoid in 2016 at Station Independent Projects, which were cited in ArtFCity, Visual Arts Ireland, NYArts Magazine, The LO-Down, Re-Title and Two Coats of Paint. His main artistic focus is now his experimental band Cinemartyr. He lives and works in The Bronx, NY.

linktr.ee/CINEMARTYR

shaneharrington.art@gmail.com

Skeleton Key Archival print

17 x 13 in.

$100

Shinsuke Aso

BIO

Shinsuke Aso acquires inspiration and materials for his projects from everyday life. His creation process and choice of materials always reflect situations that he is facing. For his collage works, Aso often uses repurposed materials that were discarded at his home and workplace. Getting out of a rut mostly consists of found objects that were discarded at The Noguchi Museum where he works as a shop associate. He has also been working as a museum educator for other museums for fifteen years, and through conversations with museum visitors, Aso became more interested in the diverse ways viewers look at and interpret art works. Similar to the open-ended questions he poses to the visitors at the museum, Aso creates his collage works as visualized open-ended questions that encourage each viewer to find their own way to enjoy the work. Aso was born in Gunma, Japan, in 1979 and graduated from School of Visual Arts in 2004. He currently lives and works in New York.

shinsukeaso.com

shinsuke.aso@gmail.com

Getting

of a rut Acrylic, found papers, found objects

42.5 x 26 x 1 in.

$500

Trasonia Abbott

STATEMENT

Over the last three years I’ve come to greatly appreciate the collaborative element to Noguchi’s work and the environment he created at the museum that for decades since his passing has continued to pull in artists of varying mediums and backgrounds. In 2022 I joined the Anti-Oppression Committee and felt inspired to spearhead the reemergence of the staff exhibition with more institutional support than it’s had in the past. It has been a pleasure working as the Program Coordinator for this exhibition alongside the two wonderful curators Shamysia and Orlando, to continue fostering Noguchi’s collaborative spirit in the museum.

BIO

Trasonia is a Black Nonbinary artist/organizer working in Queens, NY. Their work centers poetic exploration of words and color on page, canvas, and space. Aside from visual works, they also organize events: mutual aid resource drives/give aways, panel discussions, artist talks; and create audio experiences through music and podcast.

identitycrisispt.com

trasoniaabbott98@gmail.com

Big Softie

Latex, acrylic, spray paint on unstretched canvas, suspended on twine via binder clips

27.25 x 39 in.

$600

Yali Romagoza BIO

Yali Romagoza is a Cuban-born interdisciplinary artist whose work discusses migration issues and the effects of political trauma on the individual through performance, video installations, photography, and costume design. As a result of Romagoza’s experience in the U.S., coming from Cuba in 2011, she created her alter-ego Cuquita The Cuban Doll to rebuild a cultural home within the U.S. art scene, where Romagoza often does not feel included or represented. Through her narration, she illustrates what it is like to inhabit a space between cultures to address feminism and marginalization while poking fun at the misogynistic and racist stereotypes that particularly plague Latinas in the U.S. Romagoza’s alter-ego references ‘cuquitas cubanas’, a paper doll cutout distributed in magazines in Cuba during Romagoza’s childhood. Yali Romagoza builds her work from her autobiographical story sharing her feelings of vulnerability, displacement, and otherness.

yaliromagoza.org

yromagoza@noguchi.org

Pain of Cuba, Body I am

Garment with video projection 47 x 18 in.

All works © the artists

Works by Isamu Noguchi

© The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, N Y/A RS

Frontispiece photo by F.S. Lincoln

The Noguchi Museum Archives, 01530

Design by Shamysia Waterman

The Noguchi Museum

9-01 33rd Road

Long Island City, NY 11106

noguchi.org | 718.204.7088