Curators and researchers Alexandra Chang and John Tain discuss and consider collaborations and partnerships across art forms, disciplines, and socio-political contexts in the current global condition.
Although Isamu Noguchi achieved international recognition for having masterminded monumental public sculptural works and innovative forms for everyday use, his multi-faceted career as a sculptor was very much nurtured and developed in his professional and personal relationships. From the US to Japan, his journey is interwoven with stories of friendships, collaborations and partnerships that transcended borders and produced a rich body of works, from theatre sets to playground models, from landscape designs to furniture and lighting. Taking inspiration from his approach, this conversation reflects on the role and impact of collaboration in artistic and curatorial practice.
The conversation will be moderated by Noguchi: Resonances curator-in-residence, Annie Jael Kwan.
This online event is part of a digital residency at the Barbican, Noguchi: Resonances which has emerged as an ongoing collaborative exploration in response to Noguchi, our current exhibition celebrating Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988).
Biographies
John Tain is Head of Research at Asia Art Archive, where he leads a team based in Hong Kong, New Delhi, and Shanghai. He has organized several exhibitions, among them Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Someday, Chicago (2018), “Out of Turn” at the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa (2018) and “Women Make Art History” and “The Body Collective” during Art Basel Hong Kong (2018, 2019), and most recently, Crafting Communities (2020), which looks at the confluence of feminism, crafts, and social practice in the biennial series of Womanifesto events organized in Thailand from 1997 to 2008. In 2019-20, he co-convened MAHASSA (Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, and South and Southeast Asia, 2019-2020), a collaboration with the Dhaka Art Summit and the Institute for Comparative Modernities at Cornell University. His writings have appeared in publications such as Artforum, Flash Art, and Art Review Asia, and he is an editor for the Exhibition Histories series with Afterall and CCS Bard, the latest volume of which is Uncooperative Contemporaries: Art Exhibitions in Shanghai in 2000. He was previously a curator for modern and contemporary collections at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.
Noguchi: Resonances
Our digital residency offers a unique insight into Isamu Noguchi, as artists, curators and thinkers reflect on his archive and artistic legacy
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