Toshiko Takaezu with works in Hawai‘i, 1987. Photo: Macario Timbal. © Family of Toshiko Takaezu
The retrospective is organized by The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, with assistance from the Toshiko Takaezu Foundation and the Takaezu family. It is co-curated by art historian Glenn Adamson, Noguchi Museum Curator Kate Wiener, and composer and sound artist Leilehua Lanzilotti.
The show at The Noguchi Museum will feature about 200 works from private and public collections around the country. Following its presentation at The Noguchi Museum, the exhibition will travel to several additional venues across the United States.
This retrospective aims to trace the evolution of her practice and reframe Takaezu as one of the most compelling and conceptually innovative American artists of the last century. It considers the range, depth, and development of Takaezu’s work with a particular focus on the worlds she conjured within individual forms and in stunning environmental installations. The title of the show is meant to evoke the vital sense of resonant space expressed in Takaezu’s work and alludes to her assertion that the most important aspect of her closed forms is “the dark space that you can’t see” — the hidden worlds within.
Toshiko Takaezu, Gaea, LongHouse Reserve, East Hampton, New York,
July–September 1994. © Family of Toshiko Takaezu
Amy Hau is the new director of the Noguchi Museum in Queens. Photo Cindy Trihn
