Stone and Metal

BY darrell spearman

ABSTRACT:

In this essay, I compare two pieces created by Isamu Noguchi; Childhood, 1970, and Serpent Heart and Spider Dress, 1946. Visually, the two of them are clearly different and seemingly unconnected. While Childhood is a much more inward and dangerously solid piece, and Serpent and Spider Dress a more loud, unleashed, angry piece, the two are alike in specific ways. Exploring the mechanisms of Noguchi and his shared experiences written in his autobiography, Hayden Herrera’s Listening to Stone, and other texts, I examine how these two pieces respond to the space surrounding them, how they both resemble human responses to life and other humans, and other similarities. The two pieces appear to be inversions of one another. Working with Martha Graham in Cave of the Heart may have lent Noguchi a sense of exploration in showing what eruptions, and/or friction lived inside of his more solid, concealed pieces—as many have existed before Childhood was created after his collaboration with Graham.

In 1946, Isamu Noguchi created a piece made of metal and stone, called Serpent and Spider dress, for Martha Graham’s Cave of the Heart performance. The performance is a twenty-eight minute geocentric version of the Greek mythology of Medea, princess of the kingdom of Colchis. The serpent is a stone piece inspired by landscape, while the Spider Dress is a flared entity made of metal. It resembles sparks, flames, and anything outward—a burst of emotion and realization. Fascinated by the work of Noguchi in his collaboration with Graham, I looked at some of his other works (those made of stone), and paid close attention to these pieces and how they made me feel. One that stood out to me was Childhood, 1970. I noticed that many of Noguchi’s pieces were made as bulges, as one piece. They often expressed an inwardness, while his work for his and Graham’s show looks like the complete opposite; an explosion of such inwardness, rather. While Serpent and Spider dress and Childhood appear to be inherently different pieces, the two are vastly related.

These two pieces that speak differently, energetically, seem to both live as a response to the space around them. While Childhood is inward and as solid as a rock, Spider Dress is visibly alarmed, responding to its surroundings with awareness and rage, an inversion of Childhood. Childhood seems to respond to the space it is in by turning inward, concealing itself from everything surrounding it, which speaks to a human’s response to not being able to trust one’s own environment. The Spider dress is flared, and manic like a mad ocean, resembling a shock. The image sounds like the hissing of a snake, as rage radiates from the metal. In Isamu Noguchi: Essays and Conversations, Noguchi said: “If sculpture is rock, it is also the space between rocks and between the rock and a man, and the communication and contemplation between.” This statement correlates to Noguchi’s interest and intention in not just displaying stone, or metal, but the spatial connections and impacts of distance, awareness, and contact. In his statement in the catalog for the Fourteen American’s Exhibition at the MOMA in 1946, the same year he made Serpent Heart and Spider Dress for Graham, Noguchi said: “The Essence of sculpture is for me the perception of space.” This quote was written into Hayden Herrera’s book Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi. Though responding differently, they are both responding. Childhood is in a place where it feels unsafe to reveal its contents, while the Spider Dress is so rattled by what surrounds it that it is spreading itself through space, and etching its nerves through space.

I recognize both Childhood and Serpent and Spider Dress as not only responses to space, but also to friction or relation to something else resembling human connection—whether it be in response to abandonment (the Spider Dress and the story of Medea) or untrusted affection (Childhood). The title of the round stone piece implies that it may be a symbolism to his childhood. Instead of expressing, or reflecting on his childhood, the piece rather shows

self-containment in an enigmatic form, and is very still. This inward stone can be understood as his response to sentiments of his childhood, and instinctual ways of responding to nostalgia or memory. In her book, Herrera also wrote: “Noguchi was not an expressionist. He preferred calm and stillness, meanings that were timeless rather than immediate...” Perhaps Childhood is not about his feelings, but his state—and the state of others who are independent and used to being alone after specific childhood experiences. In her talk for her book, Listening to Stone, Herrera quoted Noguchi: “My extreme attachment never returned, and now the more motherly she became, the more I resented her.” This is in reference to Noguchi’s relationship with his mother when they reunited in New York after he hadn’t seen her for five years—he traveled to a boarding school in Indiana alone at age thirteen. “Noguchi learned to be extraordinarily independent,” said Herrera.

Childhood can also be seen as Noguchi’s response to his mother’s affection after his independence had already been set in stone.

Although made by Noguchi, Serpent Heart and Spider Dress was made for a specific story, told by Martha Graham. This means that her own input had been braided into this impactful piece as the two collaborated. The Spider dress seems to be responding intensely to something that feels quite fatal or threatening, and it is no secret that at the time of making this piece, Graham had been in an “intense” relationship with Erick Hawkins, who was a male dancer in her company. Part of Graham’s intentions in creating this piece was to express the intense feelings of jealousy and rage; using body and movement to examine female emotion, constructing her own version of the story of Medea.

The main message of Medea’s story is the power of emotion, the reactions/actions emotions spark from people. Graham’s version of the Greek mythology lends us a story of Medea, princess of Colchis who’s husband, Jason, abandons her. Dancing through rage, resentment, and sexual jealousy, Graham uses the Spider Dress as an element of shock and realization. In her article, “Serpent Heart: Animality, Jealousy, and Transgression in Martha Graham’s Medea,” Nina Papathanasopoulou wrote: “Cave of the Heart..., created in 1946 while Graham was going through a tumultuous and intense relationship with a young dancer in her company, Erick Hawkins...Perhaps inspired by her personal experience, Graham used the myth of Medea to explore the nature of ‘a woman who is obsessed and maddened by love’.” This speaks to the Spider dress’s explosion-like appearance—an intense response to something intense. I also find it interesting that Hawkins played the role of Jason in Cave of the Heart. This story of a time in Graham’s life gives the metal and stone a more human experience. Perhaps Graham’s way of expressing these emotions, as Medea, inspired Noguchi to let his stone burst. Instead of turning inward and freezing, this piece sent itself through space.

Noguchi’s work in Martha Graham’s Cave of the Heart may have also been a chance for him to unleash what lives inside of some of his more internalized works; the “resonating energy inside.” Serpent and Spider Dress appears to be the flaring remnants of something, or the glaring reveal of what lived inside of something, now radiating from it. Imagine the flame-like metal being a repressedness living inside of a piece as closed-in as Childhood. If it were to erupt, or burst open, I imagine the metal for Graham’s piece revealing itself as what had been withheld. Hayden Herrera included another quote in her book—Noguchi’s words—where he says: “The forms I try to create are not merely the appearance but the resonating energy inside...”

The differences between these two pieces are what make them alike. Although their mechanisms and liveliness are frozen in time—because they are stone and metal—it is visibly apparent that these pieces have qualities to them that resemble experienced human beings, nature, or anything in this world that has either responded to their world and relationships by “closing off” or bursting through the world with volume, rage, refusing to refrain. Even when just looked at as pieces made of stone and metal, they are timelessly imitating states of being.

Works Cited

Herrera, Hayden.

Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2016. Herrera discusses the life of Isamu Noguchi and his connection to stone, including context and evidence of his connection to stone being superior to his connection to humans. She includes his creative affairs from childhood to elder, and his deep appreciation of nature, observing the stone pieces he created beyond the words that were never said.

Noguchi, Isamu, et al.

Isamu Noguchi: Essays and Conversations. H.N. Abrams in Association with the Isamu Noguchi Foundation, 1994. This collection of his writing and interviews share his relationship with nature, stone, and Japanese culture.

Papathanasopoulou, Nina.

“Serpent Heart: Animality, Jealousy, and Transgression in Martha Graham’s Medea.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition, vol. 28, no. 2, 2019, pp. 159–182, https://eds.s.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? Nina Papathanasopoulou argues that Martha Graham contrast’s Europhide’s story of the Greek Mythology of Medea, giving value to the feelings of women. Papathanasopoulou examines the differences in their storytelling, providing context and examples of how Graham infuses Medea with geocentrism. She also provides personal information from the lives of both Martha Graham and Isamu Noguchi, including how these sentiments infused their collaboration on Cave of the Heart.