Western Gallery to Receive $25,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts has approved an Art Works award of $25,000 to the Western Gallery for an exhibition of Isamu Noguchi’s skyviewing sculptures in spring 2021. More than $84 million in grants were awarded to more than 1,000 projects as part of the Arts Endowment’s second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2020. 

“These awards demonstrate the resilience of the arts in America, showcasing not only the creativity of their arts projects but the organizations’ agility in the face of a national health crisis,” said Mary Anne Carter, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. “We celebrate organizations like the Western Gallery for providing opportunities for learning and engagement through the arts in these times.”

The grant provides partial support for an exhibition, symposium, and a book that will provide the first in-depth exploration of Isamu Noguchi’s skyviewing sculptures and their continued relevance to contemporary art. A significant piece in this exploration is Western’s own 17 foot-high Skyviewing Sculpture, which Noguchi created specifically for Red Square in 1969 and which has become a landmark on campus. It is a strong example of Noguchi’s intercultural aesthetics and one of his most ambitious treatment of the skyviewing theme. The exhibition is curated exclusively for the Western Gallery by Dakin Hart, Senior Curator at The Noguchi Museum in New York, and will bring close to 40 of Noguchi’s sky-viewing sculptures together for the first time.

For more information on the grant or the exhibition, contact Western Gallery Director Hafthor Yngvason at hafthor.yngvason@wwu.edu.