NEW YORK.- The Noguchi Museum continues its new program of temporary exhibitions with Noguchi and Graham: Selected Works for Dance. On view through May 1, 2005, the exhibition will explore the artist’s long and productive collaboration with legendary dancer and choreographer Martha Graham (1894–1991). It is the first exhibition to examine the work Noguchi produced for the Martha Graham Dance Company, and it looks at the ways in which this work informed his studio practice, as well as how his studio practice, in turn, informed his work in the theater.

Noguchi’s unusually close and sustained collaboration with Graham—lasting some four decades—is regarded by many as a high point in the history of modern dance theater. Graham herself once said, “Without Isamu Noguchi I could have done nothing. . . . Always he has given me something that lived on stage as another character, another dancer.”

Noguchi Museum Curator Bonnie Rychlak, who organized the exhibition, states, “Noguchi’s work with Martha Graham offers a vivid example of the artist’s innovative interdisciplinary explorations. The work also displays the breadth and aesthetic power of his work as, over the course of four decades, he created sculpture that defies traditional aesthetic and art-historical categories, crossing the accepted boundaries between art and design and the visual and performing arts. We are delighted to be working with the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance to share these works with the public.”

In his work with Graham, Noguchi vigorously explored the ways that people and sculpture interact in space; at the same time, every object he created for the Company met the highest aesthetic standards. Noguchi and Graham will examine these pieces—which include stage sets, props, and costumes—as independent works of art, while also exploring their role as integral parts of the dances for which they were created. The exhibition will feature nine of the nineteen dance sets Noguchi created for Graham: Frontier (1935), El Penitente (1940), Hérodiade (1944), Dark Meadow (1946), Night Journey (1947), Judith (1950), Embattled Garden (1958), Acrobats of God (1960), and Phaedra (1962). These comprise approximately thirty- five objects, intended to be danced on or around.

The works in the exhibition will be grouped according to the dances for which they were created. They will not, however, be displayed as they appeared on stage, but rather as distinctive works of art. In keeping with this approach, the individual dances will be arranged according to the aesthetic of Noguchi’s work for them, rather than in chronological order. Thus, the artist’s work for Night Journey could be situated next to Acrobats of God, revealing the artist’s use of bench or bed forms and their structural components.

The exhibition will also include several of the artist’s drawings and sketches, showing the evolution of his work for Graham and its relationship to his other projects. A separate gallery will house videos with footage of the dances being performed, revealing how the dancers interact with Noguchi’s objects. This gallery will also contain archival photographs and ephemera.