Isamu Noguchi: “I am not a designer” is the first exhibition to examine, critically and through an interdisciplinary framework, the celebrated twentieth-century creator Isamu Noguchi’s expansive engagement with the space-shaping possibilities of design, including his work in architecture, industrial design, ceramics, furniture, lighting, stage sets, and landscape design including playgrounds, fountains, plazas, and gardens. Noguchi (1904–1988) realized many of the projects featured in the exhibition in collaboration with defining luminaries of twentieth-century architecture, including Gordon Bunshaft, Louis Kahn, Edward Durell Stone, and Kenzo Tange. In a diverse, multimedia presentation that also includes drawings, models, and historical and contemporary photography and film of realized designs, the exhibition celebrates the impact of these creative relationships on Noguchi’s exploration of design and architecture as means of shaping generous, inclusive public space—a commitment no less radical and relevant today.

Monica Obniski is the curator of decorative arts and design at the High Museum of Art, where she is responsible for collecting, exhibiting, and programming a global collection of design, which includes a yearly architectural piazza commission. Her curatorial practice engages social issues and is rooted in architecture and design history. Obniski has organized and coorganized many exhibitions and publications, including Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other (2023–24) and Stephen Burks: Shelter in Place (2022–23). Prior to the High, Obniski worked at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Milwaukee Art Museum, where she coorganized Scandinavian Design and the United States (with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2021–23), which traveled to the Nationalmuseum Sweden and the Nasjonalmuseet (Oslo), and Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America (with the Denver Art Museum, 2017–18). Obniski received a master’s from the Bard Graduate Center and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Marin R. Sullivan is a Chicago-based art historian, curator, consultant, educator, and writer. She has a PhD in the history of art and specializes in the histories of modern and contemporary sculpture, especially its interdisciplinary, intermedial dialogues with photography, design, and the built environment. Sullivan is the author of Sculptural Materiality in the Age of Conceptualism (Routledge, 2017) and Alloys: American Sculpture and Architecture at Midcentury (Princeton University Press, 2022), which heavily features the work of Noguchi. She coorganized Harry Bertoia: Sculpting Mid-Century Modern Life at the Nasher Sculpture Center and served as the director of research for the Harry Bertoia Foundation and Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné. Sullivan was previously curator-at-large at Cheekwood Estate and Gardens, where she organized The Sculpture of William Edmondson: Tombstones, Garden Ornaments and Stonework, and guest curated Edgar Miller: Anti-Modern, 1917–1967 at the DePaul Art Museum. She is on the board of Docomomo United States/Chicago.

Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum (INFGM) is an integral collaborator on this project. Established by the artist, the INFGM today works to advance the understanding and appreciation of his art and legacy; it holds the world’s most extensive collection of Noguchi’s sculptures, drawings, models, and designs as well as the most comprehensive body of archival materials related to the artist and his oeuvre. They have offered support through lending collection objects, archival materials, and intellectual resources. Several staff members (Amy Hau, director; Larry Giacoletti, registrar and director of collections; Matt Kirsch, curator and director of research; and Allison LaPlatney, archivist) have helped facilitate regular visits for the cocurators and maintain an ongoing dialogue about the project through emails and meetings; Kirsch will also contribute an essay to the publication.

Established in 1905 as The Atlanta Art Association, the Museum’s first permanent home came in 1926 with Mrs. Joseph M. High’s donation of her family’s residence on Peachtree Street. The High Museum of Art’s mission is to bring art, ideas, and people together to amplify the importance of artistic expression, envision a better future, and positively change Atlanta. To that end, the High collects, preserves, and interprets extraordinary examples of artistic achievement; embraces complex visual culture as a generator of curiosity, creativity, understanding, and personal growth; and honors a multiplicity of voices, perspectives, and narratives in a welcoming, respectful, and brave space.