Designing (Asian) America: Noguchi to Asawa

From the Akari light sculptures of Isamu Noguchi to the suspended wire lobes of Ruth Asawa, mid-twentieth century Japanese American artists helped define the aesthetics of the postwar American home. These objects are usually celebrated as part of the modernist canon, disconnected from the broader histories of Asians in America. When they have been connected to the experiences of their makers, they are often understood as evidence of transcendence of racial barriers and oppression. Designing (Asian) America, an exhibition opening at the Barnes Foundation in fall 2026, instead examines these objects within the context of Japanese incarceration during World War II and the subsequent formation of an Asian American identity, culminating with the founding of the Asian American Political Alliance in 1968. The exhibition will feature sculpture and designs from the late 1930s to the late 1960s by two generations of artists straddling incarceration: Noguchi (1904-88), George Nakashima (1905-90), Leo Amino (1911-89), S. Neil Fujita (1921-2010), Kay Sekimachi (b. 1926), and Asawa (1926-2013). How did the racialization of Asians in postwar America affect these artists’ works? Can the incarceration camps be understood as one of the sources of modernism? By featuring objects that were part of postwar American life—from coffee tables to album covers, chairs to wallpaper designs—this project demonstrates that Asian American history is not separate from mainstream America, but rather part of people’s daily lives through these objects in their homes.