Angled Core Stone

Noguchi trained as a sculptor under Brancusi on a fellowship from the Guggenheim, and the modernist's work had a profound affect on the young artist. Yet despite formal training within the modernist tradition, Noguchi's work broke new ground by reconciling the opposing techniques of modern sculpture: carving and construction. Noguchi turned away from making monumental works to smaller, more intimate pieces following a spinal injury in the late 1970s. The artist began working with smaller pieces of stone, found boulders and rocks as well as "practice" pieces that his assistants had already partially transformed with power tools. From these initial pieces of stone, Noguchi improvised, sometimes only minimally altering them by scraping the surface or penetrating the stone's interior. These smaller works, including Angled Core Stone, offer the viewer a fresh look at the stone, including, in the present work, a direct view through the mass itself. Noguchi maintains his reverence for nature and the stone while invading it, transforming it, to re-emphasize the act of creation.