Congratulations to Temitayo Ogunbiyi on the opening of her first U.S Institutional solo exhibition at Noguchi Museum titled;You will wonder if we would have been friends.
The exhibition opened on June 18, 2025 and is on till November 2, 2025. Featuring newly commissioned sculptures and a selection of work from throughout Ogunbiyi’s seventeen-year career, the exhibition is installed among Noguchi’s permanent installation in the first floor galleries and outdoor garden.
Ogunbiyi describes her work as “responding to and forging dialogues between global current events, anthropological histories, design, and botanical cultures.” Interested in how play can serve humanity, Ogunbiyi has been researching the life and practice of Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) for several years, exploring the ways in which his pioneering work in open-ended, non-directive play expands the civic reach of sculpture. Building on Noguchi’s complex biography and the ways in which it manifests in his play sculpture designs, Ogunbiyi has created a site-specific, interactive sculpture for play, sculptures that can be used for music making, and an outdoor installation that features input from the greater museum community.
Temitayo Ogunbiyi: You will wonder if we would have been friends is made possible through major support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Generous support has been received from the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. The exhibition is also supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council and from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Text sourced from The Noguchi Museum website
Images courtesy of the Artist and Tiwani Contemporary
Photography by Deniz Guzel
June 20, 2025
