Landscape designer Edwina von Gal and industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa have been selected to receive the 2018 Isamu Noguchi Award, announced The Noguchi Museum. The award will be presented at the museum's annual benefit in New York City on May 22, 2018. The award is given to individuals who share Noguchi’s spirit of innovation, global consciousness and commitment to East/West cultural exchange.
In addition to the Isamu Noguchi Award, von Gal will also receive the NY School of Interior Design’s Green Design Award in 2018.
.
Naoto Fukasawa, Edwina von Gal. Courtesy of the Noguchi Museum.
.
Naoto Fukasawa
Known for designs that are at once simple and poetic, Tokyo-based Naoto Fukasawa has designed a variety of objects, ranging from precision electronic equipment to furniture, interior spaces, and more. A graduate of Tama Art University, in 1989 Fukasawa moved to the United States, where he was impressed by Isamu Noguchi’s forms and began his own creative pursuits based on the concept of ‘hari,’ or “well balanced tension,” according to the museum. In 1996, he returned to Japan to head the Tokyo office of the American company IDEO, and in 2003 he established Naoto Fukasawa Design.
Zero, and the mobile phones Infobar and neon for au by KDDI are all in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Fukasawa is a director of 21_21 Design Sight, a creative advisor for Muji, and art director for Maruni Wood Industry. Additionally, he works with Geiger and Herman Miller in the U.S., collaborates with leading European brands, and consults with major Japanese corporations.
In 2007, he was accorded the title of Honorary Royal Designer for Industry (awarded by the Royal Society of Arts). He has sat on many design panels, including as chairman of the Good Design Award from 2010 to 2014, and was a judge for the Braun Prize in 2012. He is a professor in the Integrated Design department at Tama Art University and director of The Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Tokyo.
Edwina von Gal
Edwina von Gal has been principal of her eponymous U.S.-based landscape design firm since 1984, creating landscapes with a focus on simplicity and sustainability. She has collaborated with architects including Frank Gehry, Richard Gluckman, Annabelle Selldorf, Maya Lin, and Richard Meier on projects for numerous people in the design and art community, among others. She has a strong presence in The Hamptons, including being a member of the Garden Committee for LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton, NY.
Von Gal’s work has been published widely and her book “Fresh Cuts” won the Quill and Trowel award for garden writing. In 2008, she founded the Azuero Earth Project, promoting reforestation on Panama’s Azuero Peninsula. In 2013, she created the nonprofit Perfect Earth Project, dedicated to raising awareness of the dangers to people, pets, and the planet of toxic lawn and garden chemicals. PRFCT EARTH PRJCT is based in East Hampton, NY.
Von Gal received the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art’s Arthur Ross Award in 2012, and was the 2017 recipient of Guild Hall’s Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award for the Visual Arts.
Isamu Noguchi Award
The Isamu Noguchi Award will be presented at the museum’s annual benefit on May 22, 2018 at The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, NY.
Previous recipients of the Isamu Noguchi Award include John Pawson and Hiroshi Senju (2017); Tadao Ando and Elyn Zimmerman (2016); Jasper Morrison and Yoshio Taniguchi (2015) and Lord Norman Foster and Hiroshi Sugimoto (2014).
The Noguchi Museum
The Noguchi Museum was founded in 1985 by Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988), one of the leading sculptors and designers of the twentieth century, The museum was the first museum in America to be established, designed, and installed by a living artist to show their own work, according to The Noguchi Museum.
The museum is made up of ten indoor galleries in a converted factory building and also features an outdoor sculpture garden. They present changing exhibitions that relate to Noguchi, hosts exhibits of Noguchi's sculpture, models for public projects and more. The museum also houses the artist's archives.
Currently on view are "The Sculpture of Gonzalo Fonseca," through March 11, 2018, and "AKARI: Sculpture by Other Means" and "AKARI UNFOLDED: A Collection by Ymer and Math," both on view through January 27, 2019.
_________________________
BASIC FACTS: The Noguchi Museum is located at 9-01 33rd Road (at Vernon Boulevard), Long Island City, NY. www.noguchi.org.
____________________________
Copyright 2018 Hamptons Art Hub LLC. All rights reserved.