Yohji Yamamoto and Danh Vo Receive the 2026 Isamu Noguchi Award

The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City held its annual benefit on Tuesday, October 6, and presented the thirteenth Isamu Noguchi Award to fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto and artist Danh Vo. The benefit is the museum's most important fundraiser, supporting exhibitions, education, care for the world's largest collection of Noguchi's work, and the preservation of his archives and spaces.

Established in 2014, the award honors people from any discipline who share Noguchi's experimental spirit and interest in cross-cultural exchange. This year also marks the 75th anniversary of Akari, Noguchi's light sculptures.

Yamamoto founded Y's in 1972 and showed his first runway collection in Paris in 1981. Known as the "poet of black," he has questioned conventional ideas of fit, proportion and gender. His work extends to Y-3 with adidas, costumes for Takeshi Kitano's films, a Wagner opera and a Pina Bausch production. He was born in Tokyo and works in Tokyo and Paris.

Vo, born in Vietnam and based in Germany, has pursued a decade-long dialogue with Noguchi, from the 2018 M+ pavilion project in Hong Kong to shows at Mudam Luxembourg, Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice and, most recently, an Akari presentation at M+.

Director Amy Hau and Board Chair Susan Kessler led the ceremony, and Satoshi Katahira, Consul General of Japan in New York, offered remarks. Guests had cocktails in the sculpture garden, then dined in the second-floor galleries, lit by Akari and decorated with flowers by Eriko Nagata Floral Studio. A silent auction included Octetra and Play Sculpture.