KYOJI NAGATANI

FAREWELL

Arnaldo Pomodoro's letter

...Dear Nagatani 

I am really happy about your next solo exhibition in Milan, before your return to Japan

I have known you for a long time and I have been able to witness your constant wandering between Italy and Japan, of which one can perceive traces in your works: together with a link to Japanese tradition, a formal artistic taste for contemporary sculpture. 

I appreciate the rigorous and essential elaboration of your work and the reflection on the relationship between opposites and on the meaning of volumes and surfaces: I am sure that this "return home" of yours will hold new expressive possibilities in reserve for you. 

A hearty greeting and the wish to continue your research and your artistic work with intensity. 

Arnaldo Pomodoro, 20 October 2021

KYOJI NAGATANI

...Thus the greeting of one great master of sculpture to another.

AND IN THE SAME WAY WE WANT TO CELEBRATE, WITH THIS "LAST EXHIBITION" THAT KYOJI NAGATANI IS GIVING TO ITALY, THE CONCLUSION OF A GRAND TOUR THAT HAS LASTED 40 YEARS.

NAGATANI MET, AMONG OTHERS, AZUMA, FRANCESCO MESSINA, ARNALDO POMODORO, EMILIO GRECO, UMBERTO MASTROIANNI, GIULIANO VANGI, FLORIANO BODINI AND GIACOMO MANZÙ.

ALMACH ART GALLERY IS HAPPY TO BE ABLE TO WITNESS WHAT, FOR THE MOMENT, WILL BE THE LAST EXHIBITION OF THE JAPANESE MASTER IN ITALY, WITH A SELECTION OF WORKS RANGING FROM THE EARLY 70S TO THE LATEST UNPUBLISHED WORKS.

Il dono di Nettuno n.2

18x25x14cm
bronzo – 2021

Cornucopia

8x14x10cm
bronzo – 2021

In the 1990s his research continued and became a mirror and reflection of everyday life. Some of his works such as Pietre Oniriche, Astrolabium, Sospiro del Cosmo, Dono di Nettuno and Motore del Tempo symbolise the fundamental passages of this period.

The questions Nagatani asks himself are: Where do we come from? Where are we? Where are we going? The answer is a journey that crosses different paths and finds different forms, but is always consistent with the same urgency to understand our position on earth. For Nagatani the artist and the craftsman, the poet and the writer are those who work using their talents to create an object that answers a question of truth, and that must be returned to society to share research and evolution, so that it may do good to society itself.

La Fenice

68x12x14cm
bronzo – 2021

It is through the exhibition that this restitution takes place, in museums and artistic spaces open to the public. The characteristics of the work of art are generosity, respect and acceptance for all, as is the case with nature. The artist tries to approach the best, without claiming perfection, feeling pleasure and not pain, but enjoying completeness, the result of interpenetration between shadow and light. Nagatani believes that this is the truth, what connects the parts. Beyond the figurative, beyond the abstract, beyond duality.

La via del cuore

28x25x28cm
bronzo – 2014

Arriving in Italy already an expert, but hungry for the knowledge that would bring him into contact with the greatest masters of sculpture of the period, he began a 'grand tour' that would last 40 years.
He chose Milan as his adopted city because here he found a basic affinity in the essentiality and discretion, yet still classy, of the Milanese "gesture".

Thus a mutual absorption develops. The rigour of the country of origin is diluted, but not too much, while the typical Lombard severity receives an impulse rich in elegance and style. If we were to look for a term to sum up Kyoji Nagatani's work, we would certainly use the term Stile. He infuses it into everything that represents him: from his person to his movements, from his continuous study to his speech and, of course, his works.

Astrolabium

80x50x50cm
bronzo – 2020

Impronta del tempo

35x35x10cm
bronzo in teca di plexiglas – 2018

Anna Pennati - El Sueno

Paesaggi dell’anima

42x26x24cm
bronzo – 2009

{

One day, while we were talking, we were discussing what sculpture is, and we entered an even more narrow alleyway through which only 'works of art' pass in search of a definition. A work of art is always a magical object to which the artist conveys the ability to make us fascinated by a rainbow of emotions that would otherwise be impossible to perceive, and sculpture, being three-dimensional and physically palpable through touch, allows us to feel it not only with our eyes but also with our hands, touching it.

Luca Temolo Dall'Igna

L’arca di Noè

22x29x21cm
bronzo – 2015

Ab Initio

80x7x33cm
bronzo, resina e foglia oro 24kt – 2019

Sospiro del Cosmo

13.5x33x14cm
bronzo – 2021

Continuing on his personal path, we could identify Nagatani's experience with the technique known in Japan as "kintsugi", i.e. the art of repairing broken pieces with gold, liquid silver or lacquer and gold dust, highlighting the fractures instead of hiding them, to create a new, reborn object, sometimes even richer and more important.
This is what Kyoji Nagatani did metaphorically when, shattering his life in his native country, he first moved to Italy. Slowly but ceaselessly, he rebuilt himself piece by piece, filling the gaps between the shards with the gold he had collected in our country, made up of art and people of infinite variety, building within himself a vase full of emotions. And today, once again, responding to the irresistible call of the Rising Sun, he finds the courage and strength to "break" this experience, but rich in the spiritual gold he has accumulated over the years, he is already working to rebuild the vase, himself, welcomed by his family and ideally by his father, to whom he wanted to pay homage by exhibiting two of his paintings.

SHOWROOM

Milano
Via Gaudenzio Ferrari 3
+39 02 39287513

OPEN HOURS

Lun-Sab: 10.30-13 | 16-19
Sunday: close
Others by appointment

Subscribe

EN