Solid Doubts: Robert Stadler at The Noguchi Museum

Solid Doubts: Robert Stadler at The Noguchi Museum
Exhibition brings work of provocative Paris-based Austrian designer together with that of Noguchi to question the “whatness” of different types of objects
On view April 26 – September 3, 2017

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 9, 2017
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Continuing its engagement with contemporary artists of all disciplines, The Noguchi Museum presents ‘Solid Doubts: Robert Stadler at The Noguchi Museum.’ Comprising four distinct installations that display work by the two men in tandem, the exhibition will explore the ways in which both Robert Stadler and Isamu Noguchi probe—and sometimes undermine—the nature of and distinctions between “art” and “design,” “functional” and “aesthetic,” and “material” and “space,” among other object-based concepts. Organized by The Noguchi Museum and curated by Noguchi Museum Senior Curator Dakin Hart in collaboration with Stadler, the exhibition opens on April 26, 2017, and remainson view through September 3.

Noguchi Museum Director Jenny Dixon notes, “This exhibition, the Museum’s first to feature a contemporary designer’s work in dialogue with Noguchi’s sculptures and designs, is a powerful demonstration of Noguchi’s lasting relevance. Beyond that, in pairing his work with that of the exceptional Robert Stadler, ‘Solid Doubts’ opens new ways of looking at the practice of both, which is exactly what an exhibition should do. We are additionally pleased that the exhibition is part of Oui Design, a program initiated by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.”

Mr. Hart adds, “Robert Stadler works the fertile land where conceptual, aesthetic, functional, and material considerations meet. This is the same zone that Noguchi explored and labored so hard to expand during his six decades as a category-defier. It is hoped that each installation, and the exhibition overall, will make a case for the reification of ambivalence and assert every object’s right and responsibility to self-doubt.”

Exhibition
As implied by its title, Solid Doubts is intended to make us think anew rather than to make pronouncements. Indeed, ambiguity is central to each of the four installations, three in the galleries and one in the Museum’s sculpture garden. Together, they will create a critique of traditional notions of the relationship between furniture and sculpture, among other ideas.

The installations are as follows:
• A table, mirror, and bench from Stadler’s travertine PDT (Pierre de taille, or, roughly “cut stone”) series (all 2015) mingle with an equal number of pieces from Noguchi’s whitewashed plywood set for Martha Graham’s Hérodiade
(1944): a stool, a mirror, and a clothes rack. Stadler’s ancient-seeming, digitally-milled furniture creates a near-mythic,
somewhat theatrical interior in which Noguchi’s set elements have the opportunity to become players. The installation gives free rein to both artists’ obsession with the potential of furniture to create microcosmic landscape environments.

• Stadler’s exquisitely tailored, tufted-leather Pools & Pouf! (2004) are interspersed with examples of Noguchi’s forays into what he long characterized as light sculpture. Stadler describes ‘Pools & Pouf!’ as a frozen moment of transformation, in which one of the archetypes of the traditional living room ensemble—upholstered seating—disintegrates, or melts, prior to reconstitution. A similar reprogramming of our material environment also underlies Noguchi’s ongoing work with light. A superb example of one of his Lunars, a prototype lunar lamp intended for mass production, and a pair of Akari lanterns show Noguchi engaging in an analogous process of redefinition.

• Stadler’s ongoing ‘Cut_Paste’ series, represented here by a low table and two examples of shelving, one a free-standing vertical, the other a bench in front of a wall-mounted backplane, is combined with sculptures by Noguchi. The ‘Cut_Paste’ works (all 2015)—assemblages of different marble veneers affixed to lightweight aluminum panels—are something like a thumb in the eye of traditional “good taste.” The veneers appear to have been haphazardly collected, perhaps from among the leftovers of some luxury building project. Stadler’s furniture assemblages are accessorized by examples of Noguchi’s sculpture featuring equally strong collisions of metal and stone, and also constructed primarily from flat raw materials.

• Finally, the sculpture garden, designed by Noguchi, is the site of a chair and coffee table from Stadler’s ‘Rest in Peace’ series (2008–10). The elements of Rest in Peace are products of a process of distressing common plastic lawn furniture and then elevating the results through careful material transmutation. The white-painted, cast-aluminum chair and table appear to be in the process of dissolution, though they should last forever, while Noguchi’s sculptures, which seem eternal, are in fact eroding away, if on a geological timescale.

Support
Major support for Solid Doubts: Robert Stadler at The Noguchi Museum is provided by Van Cleef & Arpels, FACE (French American Cultural Exchange) Foundation; through Oui Design–supported by Institut Français-Paris, the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, FACE Foundation, the Florence Gould Foundation, Van Cleef & Arpels, Air France–and Bundeskanzleramt Österreich – Federal Chancellery of Austria, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts. Generous assistance has also been provided by Carpenters Workshop Gallery. The artist’s transportation and accommodations are supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum New York.

Catalogue
‘Solid Doubts: Robert Stadler at The Noguchi Museum’ will be accompanied by a catalogue with essays by English design writer Emily King, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Associate Curator of Architecture and Design Joseph Becker, and Mr. Hart; photographs by Naho Kubota; and art direction and graphic design by Geoff Han.

Robert Stadler
Vienna-born Robert Stadler studied design at the Istituto Europeo di Design, in Milan, and the École nationale supérieure de création industrielle, in Paris, where he continues to work. In 1992, he co-founded RADI Designers collective, whose varied practice revolved around the marriage of the everyday and the unusual. In 2001, he began working on solo projects while continuing to collaborate with RADI until its dissolution in 2008. Stadler’s work ranges from furniture, product, and interior design to art-based installations, exhibitions, and curating. His designs may be found in international collections, including Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden; Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France; MAK, Museum for Applied Arts—Contemporary Art, Vienna; FNAC—Fond National d’art contemporain, Paris; and Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris. During the course of the Noguchi Museum exhibition, his work will also be on view in New York City in a solo show at Carpenters Workshop Gallery (Weight Class) from April 27 through June 17, and at Collective Design Fair, in an additional collaborative installation with The Noguchi Museum (Waiting Room: Noguchi/Stadler) from May 3 through 7.
The Noguchi Museum exhibition also coincides with Stadler’s first retrospective at the Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden, Germany (You May Also Like: Robert Stadler) from March 18 through June 25.

About The Noguchi Museum
Founded in 1985 by Isamu Noguchi (1904–88), one of the leading sculptors and designers of the twentieth century, The Noguchi Museum was the first museum in America to be established, designed, and installed by a living artist to show his or her own work. Widely viewed as among the artist’s greatest achievements, the Museum comprises ten indoor galleries in a converted factory building, as well as an internationally acclaimed outdoor sculpture garden. Since its founding, it has served as an international hub for Noguchi research and appreciation. In addition to housing the artist’s archives and the catalogue raisonné of his work, the Museum exhibits a comprehensive selection of sculpture, models for public projects and gardens, dance sets, and his Akari light sculptures. Provocative, frequently-changing installations drawn from the permanent collection, together with diverse special exhibitions related to Noguchi and the milieu in which he worked, offer a rich, contextualized view of Noguchi’s art and illuminate his enduring influence as a category-defying, multicultural, cross-disciplinary innovator.

The Noguchi Museum is located at 9-01 33rd Road (at Vernon Boulevard), Long Island City, New York. It is open Wednesday–Friday, 10 am–5 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 11 am–6 pm. General admission is $10; $5 for seniors and students with a valid ID. New York City public high-school students, children under 12, and Museum members are admitted free of charge. Admission is free on the first Friday of every month. Public tours in English are available daily at 2 pm, and in Japanese on the first Friday and second Sunday of every month.

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