Noguchi Museum Presents 2026 Isamu Noguchi Award to Yohji Yamamoto and Danh Vo

On Tuesday, October 6, 2026, the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City held its annual benefit 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. It supports exhibitions, education programs, care of the world's largest collection of Noguchi's work, and preservation of the artist's archives and spaces.

Established in 2014, the award recognizes people who share Noguchi's spirit of innovation and unbounded imagination, with work marked by fearless experimentation, cross-cultural dialogue and social consciousness. Earlier honorees include Tadao Ando, Rei Kawakubo, Naoto Fukasawa, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Lee Ufan.

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, film costumes for Takeshi Kitano, a Wagner opera and a Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal production. The museum links his reworking of past forms to Noguchi's idea of the "true development" of craft traditions. Born in Tokyo in 1943, he works in Tokyo and Paris.

Vo, born in Vietnam in 1975 and now based at his farm and studio Güldenhof in Germany, has spent a decade in dialogue with Noguchi's work. That includes projects at M+ in Hong Kong, SMK in Copenhagen, Mudam Luxembourg and Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice, and most recently Danh Vo in Situ: Akari by Noguchi at M+.

The evening fell in the 75th anniversary year of Akari. Guests had cocktails in the sculpture garden and first-floor galleries. Director Amy Hau and Board Chair Susan Kessler led the ceremony, and Japan's Consul General in New York, Ambassador Satoshi Katahira, gave remarks. Dinner followed in the second-floor galleries, lit by Akari, and a silent auction offered Octetra and Play Sculpture. Gifts can still be made online, and questions go to benefit@noguchi.org.