Lamps, chairs and album covers join sculpture in Noguchi to Asawa: Designing Postwar America, an exhibition bringing six Japanese American artists and designers to the Barnes in Philadelphia.
The public opening was September 20, 2026, with the show scheduled through January 10, 2027. Its subjects are Isamu Noguchi, George Nakashima, Leo Amino, S. Neil Fujita, Kay Sekimachi and Ruth Asawa. Sculpture sits within a wider account of furniture, graphic design and fiber work.
The exhibition connects these practices through history. It considers the artists' work in relation to wartime Japanese American incarceration and the larger history of Asian America. Their individual lives took different routes through that period.
The Barnes exhibition page supplies the current ticket choices and related events. It lists a catalog for readers who want to pursue the subject beyond the galleries, alongside tours and evening programs. Related events have their own dates and booking conditions.
The exhibition occupies the Roberts Gallery. Ticket inclusions differ between a general daytime visit and separately scheduled programs.
Six distinct practices
Noguchi's design work and Nakashima's furniture bring the exhibition into domestic interiors. Fujita's work includes album jackets and typography. Sekimachi and Asawa work with fiber, wire and space, while Amino adds another sculptural practice.
The Barnes also lists a catalog edited by curator Cindy Kang. Its essays connect the artists' careers to Asian labor and racialization in the United States, while family interviews and other contributions add individual perspectives.
The Barnes distinguishes the artists' ages and career stages in December 1941. Noguchi, Nakashima and Amino had begun their practices; Fujita was twenty, and Sekimachi and Asawa were teenagers. Some early art training took place inside incarceration camps. Those ages and experiences shaped different starting points for the postwar work.
