Isamu Noguchi: ‘I am not a designer’ at High Museum of Art

Kristin Nord | Antiques and the Arts | 24th March 2026

A previous show of Noguchi lights and tables was dismissed by one critic as “clever but harmless”. A new, more expansive show positions him differently – as someone who combined sculpture, architecture, landscape, and civic projects into a single practice. His definition of sculpture, for instance, included some of what we now call design. For him, collaboration and “in-betweenness” were natural ways to work, something institutional narratives miss. “Noguchi’s work feels uncannily contemporary”.