Isamu Noguchi
A Feeling
Sep 12 – Oct 18, 2025
Preview: Thursday, Sep 11; exhibition tour at 5pm followed by Champagne Reception until 8pm
White Cube Hong Kong
50 Connaught Road, Central
Hong Kong
+852 2592 2000
Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 7pm
White Cube presents the first solo exhibition in Hong Kong by Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988), exploring the profound influence that Chinese master painter Qi Baishi (1864–1957) had on his artistic development.
Noguchi first encountered the work of Qi Baishi during a visit to Beijing in the early 1930s. At the time, Qi was renowned as a pioneering artist who was bringing Chinese ink painting to a global audience. The two struck up a friendship, and, following Qi’s guidance, Noguchi created the ‘Peking Brush Drawings’ – expressive, figurative ink-and-brush works.
A selection of these early large-scale drawings from the collection of The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York, will be exhibited at White Cube alongside original works on paper by Qi himself.
The exhibition also traces the lasting impact of calligraphic forms on Noguchi’s sculptural practice, culminating in a selection of constructed bronze plate works from the late 1980s. Highlights include A Feeling – from which the exhibition takes its title – and Richard (both 1988), exemplifying Noguchi’s innovative late-career engagement with bronze. These works will be shown in dialogue with two iconic Akari, a series of light sculptures designed by the artist, which he began in 1951.
Concurrently in Hong Kong, three of the artist’s celebrated play sculptures are permanently installed as the ‘M+ Playscape’ in the North Roof Garden at M+. Also on view at M+’s Found Space is ‘Danh Vo in Situ: Akari by Noguchi’ where Vo has created flexible display structures to present Noguchi’s Akari light sculptures, highlighting the connection between Noguchi’s multifaceted practice and Vo’s interest in the layered meanings objects can hold.
The M+ permanent collection also includes several works by Noguchi, among them 26 galvanized steel sculptures from 1982–83, some of which are currently on view.
