Isamu Noguchi Quotes

We are a landscape of all we have seen.

When an artist stopped being a child, he would stop being an artist.

You can find out how to do something and then do it or do something and then find out what you did.

For me it is the direct contact of artist to material which is original, and it is the earth and his contact to it which will free him of the artificiality of the present and his dependence on industrial products.

I perceive my limitations even as I work. There are times when I see nothing but restrictions, barriers. Learning takes time.

It is weight that gives meaning to weightlessness.

It is said that stone is the affection of old men. That may be so. It is the most challenging to work. A dialogue ensues – of chance no chance, mistakes no mistakes. No erasing or reproduction is possible, at least in the way I work, leaving nature’s mark. It is unique and final.

The best is that which is most spontaneous or seemingly so.

Brancusi made me realize that what I had learned previously — the quick ways of doing things — was all wrong... It is not the quick solutions. It is not something you learn and apply. After all, it is a search you have to enter into yourself.

The essence of sculpture is for me the perception of space, the continuum of our existence.

Everything is sculpture. Any material, any idea without hindrance born into space, I consider sculpture.

The art of stone in a Japanese garden is that of placement. Its ideal does not deviate from that of nature.

I am always learning, always discovering.

Art should become as one with its surroundings.

In my work, I wanted something irreducible, an absence of the gimmicky and clever.

Appreciate the moment.

To order space is to give it meaning.