Isamu Noguchi

Isamu Noguchi was a sculptor, designer, architect, and a craftsman. He believed that through sculpture and architecture, one could better understand the struggle with nature. Isamu Noguchi was born in Los Angeles in 1904 to an irish-american teacher and editor, and a japanese poet. Isamu Noguchi was raised in Japan until, at 13, he was sent to the us to study.
after winning one of the first guggenheim fellowships in 1927, Noguchi travelled to paris where he worked for six months as a studio assistant to the sculptor, Constantin Brancusi.

Returning to New York in 1932, he made his name as a sculptor and portrait artist, as well as winning commissions for memorials, monuments and industrial designs. with his long-time friend, the visionary engineer Buckminster Fuller, he constructed models, planned outdoor projects, and investigated the ways in which people live and thrive in their environments.

He is best known for his abstract sculptures designed as adjuncts to architecture. An example of his environmental work is his massive red cube designed for the marine midland bank
building, New York city.

During the 1980s, Noguchi realized more public projects and created his own museum in long island, New York, where his large and varied collection of work is exhibited today. Noguchi died in New York city in 1988.

The Isamu Noguchi foundation, inc. is dedicated to maintaining and promoting the artistic legacy of sculptor Noguchi. The foundation operates the Isamu Noguchi garden museum; manages an extensive collection of noguchi sculpture, models, furniture and drawings; maintains records of the work of Isamu Noguchi and an archive of correspondence, manuscripts and photographs; organizes exhibitions of the work of Isamu Noguchi; loans Noguchi works to museums and special exhibitions; monitors the condition of Noguchi's works worldwide; encourages research and publication on the life and work of Isamu Noguchi; and manages the production and sale of Noguchi's akari light sculptures. http://www.designboom.com/portrait/noguchi/bio.html

Black Sun, granite, 1969

Garden Elements, Bronze set in aggregate concrete, 1962

Grey Sun, marble, 1967

Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) worked for the architect I. M. Pei as an architectural draftsman, a job that would profoundly influence his ideas about art. Working with architects not only affected LeWitt’s ideas concerning geometric precision and the viewer’s relationship to the work, it also taught him that as an artist he could work with others, as architects do, to realize his vision.

LeWitt was originally associated with the Minimalist art movement due to his extensive use of reductive, geometric forms, namely the identical cubes, employed since 1965 in serial configurations, that would become a signature form. LeWitt later became so closely associated with the Conceptual art movement that he is often called “the father of Conceptual art.” In 1967, LeWitt wrote “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art” in which he argued that the idea, or concept, that informs the work is more important than the final physical form that the artist employs to transmit his ideas.

LeWitt continues to be an important and influential artist. Many museums across the country have featured retrospectives on his work. (Holis Taggart)

Four-Sided Pyramid, 1997

Curved Wall with Towers, September 2005, Madison Square Park Conservancy

Modular Cube, 1999

Eduardo Chillida

Eduardo Chillida was born on January 10, 1924, in San Sebastián, Spain. After studying architecture from 1943 to 1947 at the University of Madrid, he began to concentrate on drawing and sculpture. In 1950 Chillida lived in Villaines-sous-Bois, France, before moving the following year to Hernani, near San Sebastián, where he formed a friendship with José Cruz Iturbe.Chillida’s first one-man show was held at the Galería Clan in Madrid in 1954. The city of San Sebastián commissioned him to execute a monument to Alexander Fleming in 1955. He won the International Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1958. He was awarded the Kandinsky Prize in 1960. He traveled to Greece in 1963 and the following year he won the Sculpture Prize at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. In 1966 Chillida met the Philosopher Martin Heidegger, whose book, Der Kunst und der Raum, he illustrated.Retrospectives of Chillida’s work were held in 1969 at museums in Basel, Zürich and Munich. In 1971 he was a visiting professor at the Carpenter Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and later in the year traveled to Barcelona on the occasion of his solo exhibition at the Sala Gaspar. Chillida and de Kooning shared the Andrew W. Mellon Prize, which was accompanied by a major show at the Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, in 1979. He was given a solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1980; participated at the Venice Biennale in 1990 with a solo show in Ca’Pesaro palace, and received the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association in 1991. The Chillida-Leku Museum in Hernani, Gipuzkoa was opened in 2000. The artist died that same year, on August 19, in his residence on Mount Igueldo (http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/inglese/collections/artisti/chillida_bio.html).

El Peine del Viento, Steel, 1977

Elogio del Horizonte, steel, 19 90

Yorkshire Sculpture Park, steel, 2006

Ilan Averbuch

Ilan Averbuch makes indoor and outdoor sculptures in different combinations of common building materials—stone, wood, metal, and glass. Many components are recycled; their former uses are revealed through the remnants of surface details. Some of Averbuch's works appear to defy gravity, as hidden complex constructions allow wooden planks to float and fragile glass to support heavy stone. His sculptures balance whimsical forms against serious themes and heavy, chunky carved elements with elegant results. Architectural, archaeological, and Biblical subjects are common in the artist's pieces—no doubt influences of his Israeli heritage. decordova.org

Tumbleweed, 2008

Skirts and Pants, 2000

Avanim Vetseiadim, 2008

Dale Chihuly

Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly was introduced to glass while studying interior design at the University of Washington. After graduating in 1965, Chihuly enrolled in the first glass program in the country at the University of Wisconsin. He continued his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he later established the glass program and taught for over a decade.
His work is included in over two hundred museum collections worldwide. He has been the recipient of many awards, including seven honorary doctorates and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.
n 1999, Chihuly mounted his most ambitious installation to date, Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem; more than one million visitors attended the Tower of David Museum to view his installations. In 2001 the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, curated the exhibition Chihuly at the V&A. He exhibited at the Salt Lake Art Center during the 2002 Olympic Winter Games and Paralympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. His first major glasshouse exhibition, Chihuly in the Park: A Garden of Glass, was displayed at the Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago. The Chihuly Bridge of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, was dedicated in 2002 (Frank Lloyd Gallery).

Peacock Blue Tower, Blown Glass, 2001


Glass blown Chandelier, 30ft high, 2000


Chihuly at Night/Cheekwood , Boat and Glass, 2010

Yinka Shonibare

Yinka Shonibare MBE was born in 1962 in London, England. After growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, Shonibare studied at Byam Shaw School of Art, London (1984–89) and earned an MA from Goldsmiths College, London University (1991). Known for using batik in costumed dioramas that explore race and colonialism, Yinka Shonibare MBE also employs painting, sculpture, photography, and film in work that disrupts and challenges our notions of cultural identity. Taking on the honorific MBE as part of his name in everyday use, Shonibare plays with the ambiguities and contradictions of his attitude toward the Establishment and its legacies of colonialism and class. In multimedia projects that reveal his passion for art history, literature, and philosophy, Shonibare provides a critical tour of Western civilization and its achievements and failures. At the same time, his sensitive use of his own foibles (vanity, for one) and challenges (physical disability) provide an autobiographical perspective through which to navigate the contradictory emotions and paradoxes of his examination of individual and political power. Among his awards are the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) (2005); a fellowship at Goldsmith's College (2003); and the Art for Architecture Award, Royal Society of Arts (1998). Shonibare was nominated for the Turner Prize (2004). His work has appeared in major exhibitions at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California (2009); Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York, (2005); Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (2004); and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2004), among others. He has participated in international events including Documenta (2003); Spoleto Festival, Charleston (2003); and the Venice Biennale (2001). Yinka Shonibare MBE lives and works in London. (art 21)

Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder (1898-1976), whose illustrious career spanned much of the 20th century, is the most acclaimed and influential sculptor of our time. Born in a family of celebrated, though more classical artists, Calder utiliezed his innovative genius to profoundly change the course of modern art. He began by developing a new method of sculpting: by bending and twisting wire, he essentially "drew" three-dimensional figure in space. He is renowned ofr the invention of the mobile, whose suspended, abstract elements move and balance in changing harmony. Calder also devoted himself to making outdoor sculpture on a grand scale from bolted sheet steel. Today, these stately titans grace public plazas in cities throughout the world (www.calder.org/home).

Mobile, 1948, Iron/paint

Five pocket Mobiles, 1955, painted metal

Flamingo, 1973, Steel/paint

David Mach

David Mach a Scottish sculptor and installation artist. Mach's artistic style is based on flowing assemblages of mass-produced found art objects. Typically these include magazines, vicious teddy bears, newspapers, car tires, match sticks, and coathangers. Many of his installations are temporary and constructed in public spaces.

Polaris consisted of 6000 car tires that were arranged as a lifesize replica of a Polaris submarine ship. In the 80's he produces some smaller-scale workd assembled out of match sticks taking the form of human or animalistic heads and masks. Recently he has produced many public sculptures out of bricks and coathangers such as a Brick Train and the Crucifixion of Christ one of his more famous and most recognizable pieces.

David Mach, Crucifixtion, Coathangers

David Mach, Astronaut, Coathangers

David Mach, Gorilla, Coathangers

Reference:

(http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_mach)

Joshua Allen Harris

In a world of over six billion people, new firsts are almost impossible, but Joshua Allen Harris has managed to eek out one more, being the first person to harness the artistic opportunities offered by subway exhaust. Using only tape and discarded plastic shopping bags, the New York based artist creates giant inflatable animals that he fastens to sidewalk grates and vents. Exhaust air expelled by passing subway trains then fills the bags, causing the creatures to become animated.

A polar bear that some have linked to concerns about global warming is the most famous Joshua Allen Harris creation so far, but he's made many other animals, creatures, and mosnsters, many of which can be viewed online.

Joshua Allen Harris, Lock Ness, Garbage bags

Joshua Allen Harris, Creatures, Garbage bags

Joshua Allen Harris, Air Polar Bears, Garbage bags

Reference:

(http://www.lostateminor.com/joshua-allen-harris/)

Michel de Broin

Born in 1970 in Montreal.

Through a collection of objects and actions, his works seek to escape the constraining nature of modern utopian aspirations whilst attempting to reenact them in playful, jesting objects that glorify the referent on the one hand while upstaging it on the other.
Drawing on his doubt in the capacity and value of ideas, his sculptural projects seek to put them to the test by literally confronting them with the necessities of reality in assemblage that often troubles the ideas it purports to speak for. (micheldebroin.com)

Shelter, 2009

Black Whole Conference, 2006

Overflow, 2008