Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi

Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Sculpture

Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi Details

About the Author Hayden Herrera is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–nominated Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work, as well as Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo and Matisse: A Portrait. Read more

Reviews

I’ve seen some of Noguchi’s work, and Hayden Herrera’s discussions of it are enlightening. Still, my fascination is with Noguchi the man. He was clearly not the easiest person to get along with, but his tremendous drive, his insecurities, his amorous quests and intense focus all make for a great story.Imagine a boy of mixed parentage, born in the U.S., raised partly in Japan, who sets off alone at the age of thirteen on a ship bound from Yokohama to Seattle. From there, still alone, he makes his way across the U.S. by train to a boarding school in Indiana. Early on, from a story like this, we see much of Noguchi’s character: he was a traveler, he was unafraid, and he was forever torn between two cultures. Because of his mixed blood, he said, “I am always nowhere.” “When I’m in Japan, I think I should be I the United States, and when I’m there I want to be back in Japan.”This same geographic impulse—“I simply can not stay in one place for a long time”—also seems to have played out with his romantic liaisons. Reading about his long list of lovers, I thought of the old line, “She who flies from me, I follow, and she who follows me, I fly from.” Or, as Noguchi himself put it: “I’m nice to women who are bad for me and bad to women who are good for me.”He could be cantankerous, ungrateful and self-centered—as well as wonderfully buoyant and supportive. It all makes for a great read, in this biography of one of our country’s most notable sculptors.

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