Six-Foot Energy Void

Artist Isamu Noguchi (American, 1904 - 1988)

Date1971-1985

MediumSwedish granite

DimensionsOverall: 71 1/2 × 61 1/2 × 22 1/2 inches (181.61 × 156.21 × 57.15 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Hall Family Foundation

Object numberF99-33/68

Signedat base of triangle: "i. n. '71-'85"

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

Contemporary Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Seven Stones, Pace Gallery, New York, March 28-April 26, 1986, no cat.
Cross Section, Pace Gallery, New York, July 9-September 20, 1992, no cat.
Isamu Noguchi: New Acquisitions from the Hall Family Foundation Collection at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 20-June 13, 1999, no cat.
Isamu Noguchi: Master Sculptor, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, October 28, 2004-January 16, 2005; Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., February 10-May 8, 2005, unnumbered.

Gallery Label

During the 1970s and 1980s, Isamu Noguchi often explored the subject of the void, saying it was "like some inevitable question that I cannot answer." Regarding this work in particular, he wrote: "At the heart of the energy there must be a terrific void…. Energy and nothingness come together." The concept of the void, or the space permeating a block of stone, is important to both modern Western sculpture and Japanese philosophy. A Buddhist sutra states: "Form is emptiness and emptiness is form." In Six-foot Energy Void, the void defines the sculpture as much as its mass of stone. The slight torque of the sculpture's form is evidence of Noguchi's extraordinary skill as a master stone carver. Six-foot Energy Void is carved from a single piece of granite, and rests upon a rectangular slab of the same material.

Provenance

The Isamu Noguchi Foundation, Inc., Long Island City, NY, 1988-1993;
Purchased from The Isamu Noguchi Foundation Inc. by the Hall Family Foundation Collection, Kansas City, MO, 1993-1999;
Their gift to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1999.

Published References

Karin Lipson, “Catch a Breeze, Beat the Heat, See some Sculptures,” New York Newsday (August 7, 1992): 69.
Ian Buruma, “Back to the Future,” The New York Review. (March 4, 1999).
“Sculpture exhibit at Nelson-Atkins includes masterworks by famed artist,” Explore KC. (May 1999): 18, (repro.).
“Noguchi sculptures arrive at Nelson-Atkins,” Lawrence Journal-World. (May 2, 1999).
Heather Lustfeldt, “Empowering the Spectator: A Style Spanning Idioms and Ages,” Review (June 1999).
Valerie J. Fletcher, Isamu Noguchi: Master Sculptor, exh. cat. (London: Scala Publishers, 2004), 209, (repro.).
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 222, (repro.).
Alexandra Munroe, The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989, exh. cat. (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2009), 182, 183, (repro.).

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