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THE LAST EXHIBITION OF THE JAPANESE MASTER IN ITALY, WITH A SELECTION OF WORKS RANGING FROM THE EARLY 70S TO THE LATEST UNPUBLISHED WORKS.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
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
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.
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.
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