Arizona

An attractive, slipcased catalog for a collaborative exhibition of sculptor Isamu Noguchi, painter Genichiro Inokuma, and designer Issey Miyake at the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art (MIMOCA), Japan, highlighting the mutual influence of the three friends and their hybrid Japanese and American cultures. After forming a close friendship in New York City in the 1950s, Noguchi took recent Japanese immigrant Inokuma to Poston, Arizona, the site of an internment camp for Japanese-Americans in World War II where Noguchi lived voluntarily in solidarity with his countrymen, despite exemption as a New York resident. Inokuma became enthralled by the art and lore of the Hopi Indians, returning several times and filling sketchbooks with the graphic Kachina dolls. These Hopi motifs later infiltrated Inokuma’s paintings, which in turn influenced designer Miyake, another compatriot and mentee of Noguchi. A concertina format underscores the complimentary materials and forms found within sculpture, sketches, and garments.