Curated by Shoji Sadao

Buckminster Fuller was a brilliant polymath who invented the geodesic dome and the Dymaxion car—a fanciful, fuel-saving, three-wheeled automobile of the future. His friend and sometime collaborator Isamu Noguchi made a one-tenth-scale prototype of the groundbreaking vehicle—its streamlined design part Machine Age, part Amazing Stories—which will be featured in this exhibition of some forty models, sculptures, and photographs selected by Sadao, former Noguchi Foundation director and a longtime collaborator with both men. Noguchi is considered a reconciler of the aesthetics of East and West, but here we will see how Fuller’s influence fueled lifelong interests in other dualisms—art and design, thought and utility—apparent in everything from Noguchi’s playground designs to his paper lamps. Don’t miss the Japanese artist’s chrome-plated(!) bust of Fuller, a tribute to their solid friendship.

— Josiah McElheny