2022

This publication collects one of Isamu Noguchi’s last and most essential interviews, along with 14 photographs from The Noguchi Museum Archives.

In 1988, perpetually itinerant sculptor Isamu Noguchi spoke with artist Rhony Alhalel on several occasions in Japan. Noguchi expresses deep bitterness about the commercialization of art, rampant ignorance, and the desecration of beautiful places and sacred things. Their dialogue is also in a sense a love letter to Kyoto, and as Noguchi’s last published interview, contains some of his parting words. Stating that “Art for me is something which teaches human beings how to become more human,” Noguchi offers us ideas on how to proceed, always in conflict and speaking with nature.

The text originally appeared in Kyoto Journal 10, Spring 1989, and is reprinted with permission. This edition is published in collaboration with The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum. Paired with the text are materials from The Noguchi Museum Archives, including personal photographs taken by Noguchi in Japan, as well as new and classic documentation of Noguchi’s sculpture and garden designs by Iwan Baan, Shigeo Anzai, and others.

The book is hand set in metal foundry type – Aldus and Palatino, cast by Rainer Gerstenberg in Frankfurt, Germany – and printed letterpress. Sewn and bound by hand, and laid into a letterpress printed dust jacket with two B&W photograph paste-down images. Photographs printed color offset. Typesetting, letterpress printing, and binding by Jon Beacham.

36 pages, 6 x 9.25 inches. First printing.

Edition of 400