Theaster Gates and his fellow cohort of 2023 Isamu Noguchi Award winners recently gave an interview to Art Basel’s online publication in order to provide depth and detail as to the aspects of the storied artist's work that has propelled them creatively in their various endeavors. 

The 49-year-old pioneer of social practice expanded on comments he made after the announcement, where he called the Award “one of the highest honors I could receive.” He pointed to a lecture given by Martin Puryear at the Art Institute of Chicago as sparking his interest in Noguchi, before quipping that Noguchi's designs, much like his own work, offered the world "excellent craftsmanship; values rooted in animistic philosophies that understand that the spiritual life within things should be respected and protected; and a conviction that the public deserves exceptionally made things.

“What moved me so deeply was that Noguchi was not afraid to scale ideas and the language of his work was rooted between nature, the hand, and architecture,” Gates said. “His plazas were especially meaningful for me as a young person interested in reshaping public space. But the scale change did not interrupt the playfulness, clarity of line or encounters with the hand.”

Author Hanya Yanagihara also pointed to Noguchi’s work at the Poston internment camp (where he voluntarily relocated in February 1942) calling it an “astonishing act of sacrifice and compassion.” 

Influential sculptor Edmund de Waal also described his early interest in Noguchi as a subject, detailing a profound encounter at his Peace Bridge in Hiroshima with a survivor of the bombing before making a comparison between his own deft use of materials and the work of the late designer.

"Noguchi's bond with clay, stone, and his innate sense of place speak to me," he said. "His ceramics inhabit a deep continuity with the beginnings of pottery – the squeezing of clay in your hands, the markings of fire. This is pottery as a primal need to make something out of what is to hand. It is somatic. It is for me. I use porcelain – a refined white clay – but still connect to this essential quality of play."

The 2023 Noguchi Award recipients will be honored on Tuesday, September 12th, during a special benefit gala held at the museum’s Long Island City, Queens location.