New York, NY — The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum announces its third annual Open Call for Artist Banners. Emerging artists based in New York City and self-identifying as Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) are invited to submit designs for the Museum’s three outdoor banners, in response to the theme love and labor. Three artists (one winner and two runners-up) will be chosen by a jury composed of The Noguchi Museum’s organizing committee (a cross-departmental group of staff volunteers), as well as guest jurors.

The winning artist will have their designs installed on the Museum’s outdoor banners for one year, from May 2024 through May 2025 (corresponding with AAPI Heritage Month), and will receive an honorarium of $3,500. The two runners-up will each receive an honorarium of $2,500. Each of the three artists will have the opportunity to develop and lead a public program at The Noguchi Museum in collaboration with the Museum’s Education department during free admission Community Days in the summer of 2024. The Museum will also produce short interview films with each artist to highlight their work and studio practice. Submissions are due by February 4. Learn more and apply at noguchi.org/open-call-for-artist-banners-2024.

The Noguchi Museum Announces 2024 Open Call for Artist Banners
Emerging AAPI artists in New York City are invited to submit designs for The Noguchi Museum’s outdoor banners
Deadline for Submissions: Sunday, February 4

For more information and to submit your application, please visit our website: https://www.noguchi.org/open-call-for-artist-banners-2024/

OPEN CALL
The artist Theaster Gates, 2023 Isamu Noguchi Award honoree, recently described Isamu Noguchi’s practice as one driven by “labor and love,” an essential need to work and create that resulted not only in sculpture but also in playgrounds, gardens, plazas, fountains and other spaces that the public could experience and enjoy. For Noguchi, creative work was a necessity not only as a private outlet but as a way of finding his own place in the world, which led him to contribute sites of significance, leisure, and play that exist outside the usual confines of art. In this spirit, The Noguchi Museum’s 2024 Open Call for Artist Banners project will connect personal practice and communal experience, existing at the intersection of the two themes: labor and love.

The Open Call for Artist Banners project was established in 2021 as a venue to celebrate and amplify creative voices within the Museum’s local Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) artist communities. To be eligible, artists must self-identify as AAPI, and reside in or have a studio in one of the five boroughs of New York City. Artists must be 18 and older. Students who are currently enrolled (at the time of application) as candidates for art or design related degrees or certificates are not eligible to apply.

ABOUT THE NOGUCHI MUSEUM
Founded in 1985 by category-defying Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988), The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum (now known as The Noguchi Museum) in Queens, New York, was the first museum in the United States to be established, designed, and installed by a living artist to show their own work. Itself viewed as among the artist’s greatest achievements and holding the world’s largest collection of his works, the Museum features open air and indoor galleries in a repurposed industrial building and a serene outdoor sculpture garden. Since its founding, it has served as an international hub for Noguchi research and appreciation. In addition to managing the artist’s archives and catalogue raisonné, the Museum exhibits a comprehensive selection of Noguchi’s material culture, from sculpture, models, and drawings, to his personal possessions. Provocative installations drawn from the collection, together with diverse special exhibitions and collaborations with practitioners across disciplines, offer a multifaceted view of Noguchi’s art and illuminate his enduring influence. noguchi.org | @noguchimuseum

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS
To apply, please send the following materials through the submission link on our website: https://www.noguchi.org/open-call-for-artist-banners-2024/

• Your banner design (design specifications are listed below)
• Your CV (Curriculum Vitae)
• A proposal that briefly describes the following in under 300 words total:
Your artistic practice
How your banner design relates to the theme of “labor and love”
Your vision for how your artistic practice could translate into a public program

The deadline for submissions is Sunday, February 4, 2024 at 11:59 pm.