Research into Miyake and Noguchi

ISSEY MIYAKE 80

Issey Miyake Taschen

Miyake, I. and Holborn, M. (1995). Issey Miyake. 1st ed. Köln: Taschen.

(Miyake and Holborn, 1995)

Key themes of Miyake's design

Internationalism
Movement of the body
Simplicity
Freedom

Miyake's notable collaborators 

Shiro Kuramata - designer
Eiko Ishioka - art director, designer
Tadanori Yokoo - painter, graphic designer
Tadao Ando - architect

Irving Penn - photographer
Key shows and exhibitions

Issey Miyake and Twelve Black Girls in Japan 1976 show
A Piece Of Cloth - Issey Miyake in Museum 1977 show
ISSEY MIYAKE SPECTACLE: BODYWORKS 1983 exhibition
ISSEY MIYAKE A - ŪN 1988 exhibitionTEN SEN MEN 1990 exhibition

Issey Miyake Pleats Please 1990 exhibition
Issey Miyake: Making things 1998 exhibition 

Characteristics of Miyake's design practice

“His aesthetics are always tempered by function and practicality” (Miyake and Holborn, 1995, p.16)

“His own sense of definition is inescapably rooted in Japan, yet both the inspiration and execution of his work are defiantly international.” (Miyake and Holborn, 1995, p.16)

Miyake - “I always try to get all my answers by returning to one piece of cloth, the most basic form of clothing” (Miyake and Holborn, 1995, p.42)

Miyake - “My challenge as a clothing designer has been to create something different, not traditionally Japanese, not purely Western, but something which has the best of both: a new genre of clothing.” (Miyake and Holborn, 1995, p.44)

“Pleats Please represents Miyake’s most simple design light and washable, the look was ideal for the modern age.” (Miyake and Holborn, 1995, p.82)

“Miyake creates contradictions. He has destroyed boundaries – those that separate fashion from the world of design, as well as those that lie between East and West. Yet he has declared his desire to maintain boundaries, albeit transparent walls through which we glimpse foreign cultures and colour. Design is the language with which this exchange takes place and the Miyake Design Studio is the creative axis enabling the exchange.” (Miyake and Holborn, 1995, p.82)

Possible ideas


An editorial piece that looks into the iconic design of Miyake's Pleats Please range.

To represent the techniques of Miyake designs though typography.

A to Z of Issey Miyake's career.

Interpreting the philosophy behind APOC (A Piece Of Clothing) into APOT (A Piece of Type).

Detailing the evolution of Miyake’s clothing through typography.

Documenting the influential rise of Issey Miyake up until 2000. 

ISAMU NOGUCHI 30

Isamu Noguchi: Master Sculptor

Altshuler, B. and Noguchi, I. (1994). Isamu Noguchi Master Sculptor. 1st ed. New York: Abbeville Press.
(Altshuler and Noguchi, 1994)

Key characteristics of Noguchi as an artist 

Wanted to communicate with many audiences, not just the elite.

Exploited every nuance of materials and methods.

Used both geometry and biomorphic forms sometimes in harmony, sometimes in contrast.

The concept of duality.

Vertical sculptures allowed him to allude to figures and human emotions.

Horizontal compositions serve as visual metaphors for place and space. 

Timeline of Noguchi's sculpture styles

Leda, 1928

Brass, 59.2 x 36.2 x 27.9 cm

The Isamu Noguchi Foundation, Long Island City, New York

P.17

Abstract sculptures

“He began with a paradigm of formal reduction, a marble sphere with a quarter of its mass removed–his first sculpture in stone. Reacting against the severity of this geometry, Noguchi went on to carve wood and stone into more organic abstractions.” (Altshuler and Noguchi, 1994, p.15)

R. Buckminster Fuller, 1929

Chrome-plated bronze, 33 x 20.3 x 25.4 cm

P.19

Portraiture 

“For Noguchi, it was the end of abstraction for over a decade.” (Altshuler and Noguchi, 1994, p.18)
“Noguchi returned to representational portraiture, sculpting the heads of wealthy sitters for income and those of other artists for friendship (and practice).” (Altshuler and Noguchi, 1994, p.18)

Peking Drawing (man sitting), 1930

Horizontal hanging scroll, ink on paper, 104.1 x 193.8 cm

The Noguchi Museum

Chinese ink drawings 

“Noguchi stayed in Beijing for seven months, living well and discovering ancient palaces and gardens that fed his fascination with public spaces as cultural forms.” (Altshuler and Noguchi, 1994, p.20)
“He had found another mentor in the distinguished painter Ch’i pai-shih, with whom he studied that traditional use of Chinese brush and ink.” (Altshuler and Noguchi, 1994, p.20)
“These are dramatic works, combing long, restrained lines with dynamic ink washes of great agitation.” (Altshuler and Noguchi, 1994, p.20)

The Queen, 1931

Terra-cotta, 115.6 x 40.6 x 40.6 cm

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York;

Gift of the artist

P.22

Old Japan terra cotta figures 

“he left for Kyoto with an introduction to the master potter Jinmatsu Uno. It was in Kyoto that Noguchi the artist first confronted the aesthetic achievements of old Japan.” (Altshuler and Noguchi, 1994, p.21)
“Noguchi spent much of his five months in Kyoto working in Uno’s pottery, where he fired dozens of cast terracotta figures in the master’s great kiln.” (Altshuler and Noguchi, 1994, p.23)

Table for A. Conger Goodyear, 1939

Rosewood and glass, 76.2 x 213.4 cm 

Dr. Alexander Schure

P.51

Furniture in the 1940s

First commissioned piece of furniture, Table for A. Conger Goodyear, 1939, Rosewood glass
“Simplified and transformed, by 1944 this design had become Noguchi’s well known biomorphic coffee table, which would be manufactured from 1947 by Herman Miller, Inc.” p.52

Akari, early 1950s

Paper, bamboo, and metal

P.59

Light sculptures in the early 1950s 

Akari, early 1950s, paper bamboo metal
He viewed each Akari as basically two sculptures, one when light was reflected of it and another when light was emitted from it.” p.58 

Jardin Japonais, 1956-58

UNESCO Headquarters, Paris

P.64

Sculpting Spaces in the post war period

“For Noguchi, in the chaotic void of the modern world–a world without religion and threatened with nuclear destruction–meaning must be created, and its creation required spaces that would encourage social ritual. The structuring of those spaces was to be the new calling of sculpture, and its reigning metaphor of the garden.” p.65

The Great Rock of Inner Seeking, 1974

Basalt, 324.9 x 158.5 x 88.9 cm

National Art Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; 

Gift of Arthur M. Sackler, M.D., and Mortimer D. Sackler, M.D.

P.111

Freestanding Sculptures 

“By the late 1960s stone was no longer just one among many possible materials for Noguchi; it was becoming the focus of his work.” p.92