Personal Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Isamu Noguchi
American; 20th-century
Peoria, IL: Peoria Riverfront Museum
44%
Pylon (Tall One). 1958/1981. Galvanized steel
It's likely that much of this sculpture's failure can be attributed to its improper placement outside the Riverfront Museum. Egregiously, it's up in a raised planter with its back to the building so that it can't be circumambulated, which makes all its open "slots" seem almost like pictorial features rather than (what I'm sure they were intended to be) spatial cyphers that turn the pillar's insides outwards, and vice versa. Then again, the openings are pictorial, at least in part, and in this capacity they're underdeveloped: their concentration at the base gives the expanse of unaccented steel in the object's middle third a certain unprofitable anonymity, which in turn emphasizes the awkwardness of the lack of relation between the oculus up top and the cluster of portals below. Perhaps some of these problems would resolve themselves in the round. (2024)