CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/10/2015

Isamu Noguchi: A Sculptor's World

"Brancusi said that when an artist stopped being a child, he would stop being an artist," Isamu Noguchi writes in A Sculptor's World, his 1968 autobiography, now available in a new edition from Steidl. "Children, I think, must view the world differently from adults, their awareness of its possibilities are more primary and attuned to their capacities. When the adult would imagine like a child he must project himself into seeing the world as a totally new experience. I like to think of playgrounds as a primer of shapes and functions; simple, mysterious, and evocative: thus educational. The child's world would be a beginning world, fresh and clear. The sculptural elements here have the added significance of usage—in actual physical contact—much as is the experience of the sculptor in the making." Featured image is of Noguchi's metal models for playground equipment, Hawaii, 1939.