An interesting juxtaposition of Isamu Noguchi’s sculpture and Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera’s exhibition mural

An interesting juxtaposition of Isamu Noguchi and Frida Kahlo at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. The mural for the Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Masterpieces of Modern Mexico is framed by the Noguchi’s Six-foot Energy Void. The Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Masterpieces of Modern Mexico was on view in 2013 at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Photograph by versluis.


Isamu Noguchi
American, 1904–1988
Six-foot Energy Void, 1971–85
Swedish granite
Collection of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

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 id 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. (1)

1. The statement/didactic above is from the exhibition label and courtesy of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.