FAREWELL by KYOJI NAGATANI
Arnaldo Pomodoro letter
...Dear Nagatani
I am really happy about your upcoming solo exhibition in milan, before your return to Japan.
I have known you for a long time and have witnessed your constant wandering between Italy and Japan, traces of which can be perceived in your works: along with a link to Japanese tradition, a formal artistic taste for contemporary sculpture.
Of your work, I appreciate the rigorous and essential processing and the reflection on the relationship between opposites and the meaning of volumes and surfaces: I am sure that this 'homecoming' of yours will hold new expressive possibilities for you.
A warm greeting and the wish to continue your research and 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 grants 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 time being, will be the Japanese master's last exhibition in Italy, with a selection of works ranging from the early 1970s to the latest unpublished works.
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 are: Where do we come from? Where are we? Where are we going? The answer is a journey that traverses different paths and finds different forms, but is always consistent with the same urge 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 which must be returned to society to share research and evolution, so that it does good to society itself.
It is through the exhibition that this restitution takes place, in museums and art 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 this is the truth, what connects the parts. Beyond the figurative, beyond the abstract, beyond duality.
Arriving in Italy already an expert, but hungry for the knowledge that put him in contact with the greatest sculpture masters 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'.
A mutual absorption therefore develops. The rigour of the country of origin is diluted, but not too much, while the typical Lombard severity receives a boost of elegance and style. If we have to look for a term that sums up Kyoji Nagatani's work, we could certainly adopt the term Style. 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.
One day, while we were talking, we were discussing what sculpture is, and we entered an even narrower alley through which only 'works of art' pass, looking for 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 otherwise 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
Continuing on his personal path, we could identify Nagatani's experience with the technique called 'kintsugi' in Japan, i.e. the art of repairing shards with gold, with liquid silver or with lacquer and gold dust, highlighting the fractures instead of hiding them, to create a new, reborn, sometimes even richer and more important object.
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 cracks between the shards with the gold he collected in our country, made of art and people of an infinite variety, building within himself a vase full of emotions. And today, 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.