Image: High Museum of Art, New York
The High Museum of Art will present a public conversation on Isamu Noguchi’s design legacy on August 1, bringing together the co-curators of the museum’s exhibition 'Isamu Noguchi: “I am not a designer”' with an international panel of designers. The hour-long program, scheduled for 2 to 3 p.m. in The Hill Auditorium, will examine how Noguchi’s ideas about world building continue to influence contemporary design practice.
The conversation is tied to the High’s current exhibition on Noguchi, which runs April 10 through August 2, 2026. In the museum’s description, the show takes its title from a 1949 interview in which the sculptor declared, “I am not a designer.” Despite that statement, the exhibition traces four decades of work in architecture, furniture, lighting, stage sets, gardens, playgrounds, and plazas, arguing that design was central to Noguchi’s artistic development rather than separate from his sculpture.
The event will feature exhibition co-curators Monica Obniski, the High’s curator of decorative arts and design, and Marin Sullivan, an art historian and co-curator of the show, in conversation with designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello, founder of nmbello Studio in Lagos; Leonidas Trampoukis, co-founder of Objects of Common Interest in New York and Athens; and Amy Auscherman, director of archives and brand heritage at MillerKnoll. The High says the discussion will focus on the enduring design legacy of one of the 20th century’s most prolific creative minds.
That framework aligns with the exhibition’s own structure, which is organized thematically around 'Making Multiples,' 'Elements of Architecture,' and 'Shaping Spaces.' According to the museum, the presentation includes models, prototypes, and plans that reveal process, and it emphasizes collaboration with architects, clients, corporations, fabricators, and other practitioners on nearly all of the projects on view. The museum says the exhibition considers design as a means of shaping generous, inclusive space.
Among the works highlighted on the exhibition page are Noguchi’s 'Coffee Table (IN-50),' designed in 1944 and made around 1947 to 1953; 'Floating Lunar (Light Plaque),' 1943 to 1944; 'Akari (model 1A),' designed 1951 to 1954 and fabricated around 1954; 'Model for House for Liam O’Gallagher and Robert Rheem, Carmel, California' [unrealized], 1955; 'Seraphic Dialogue,' 1955; 'Model for Play Mountain' [unrealized], 1933; and 'Model for US Pavilion Expo ’70' [unrealized], 1968. The museum also notes that the 'Coffee Table (IN-50)' has an Atlanta connection: a local family acquired the table through Rich’s Department Store around 1953.
The exhibition page also places Noguchi’s work in Atlanta-specific context through 'Playscapes,' his playground project in Piedmont Park, which opened in May 1976 as a bicentennial gift for the city and its residents. The High says it worked with the City of Atlanta Parks Department on the project, and that the installation was recently restored for its fiftieth anniversary.
Tickets for the August 1 conversation are listed at $10 for members and $23.50 for not-yet-members. The museum describes the program as part of its programming celebrating Noguchi’s multidisciplinary legacy, and it follows other exhibition-related events, including a July 29 closing-night YP program for 'Isamu Noguchi: “I am not a designer”' before the exhibition closes on August 2.
