A Collaborative Exhibition of Design Pieces and Iconic Sculptures

An exhibition that pairs contemporary design pieces with Isamu Noguchi’s groundbreaking work.

Created in a collaboration between New York- and Athens-based studio Objects of Common Interests and The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, Objects of Common Interest: Hard, Soft, and All Lit Up with Nowhere to Go brings together contemporary design pieces and the groundbreaking work of artist Isamu Noguchi. Senior curator Dakin Hart curated the art exhibition. Design pieces along with installations by studio founders Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis are interspersed among sculptural artworks, both in the museum’s garden and the indoor gallery spaces. While made in entirely different eras, the objects share the same approach to art and design. The three creatives also have something else in common: a focus on the fundamentals of form and function. Furthermore, the studio’s work draws inspiration from “moments of unfamiliar simplicity”, resulting in highly distinctive designs.

Throughout the garden and the museum’s permanent collection, design pieces create a powerful dialogue with iconic sculptures. In one gallery, minimal lighting appears alongside Isamu Noguchi’s late-career basalt and Manazuru stone sculptures. Outside, the studio’s Offerings–Rock II piece stand on Isamu Noguchi’s granite Garden Table from 1983. To accompany the exhibition, Objects of Common Interest and The Noguchi Museum have also launched a digital feature that explores the late artist’s relationship to his “intellectual home,” Greece. The Objects of Common Interest: Hard, Soft, and All Lit Up with Nowhere to Go runs until February 13, 2022. Photographs© Brian W. Ferry, Giorgos Sfakianakis, Objects of Common Interest, and The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum / Artists Rights Society.