Hidetoshi Nagasawa was born in Manchuria in 1940. Following the 1945 Soviet invasion, his family set off on a long and difficult voyage to Japan, which took them a year and a half. Graduating with the degree in in Architecture and Design in 1963, he found work as an architect after joining the Gutaj Group. In 1966 he married Kimiko Ezaki, and only a few months later he set off on his bicycle, heading west. In August 1967 he arrived in Milan, where he was forced to stop as his bicycle was stolen. He found a studio in the working-class district of Sesto San Giovanni and came into contact with a group of artists including Enrico Castellani, Luciano Fabro, Mario Nigro, Antonio Trotta and Athos Ongaro. In 1972 he participated in the Biennale in Venice for the first time.
In the eighties, Nagasawa’s work grew in scale, leading him to create spaces on the borderline between sculpture and architecture; his works also became anti-gravitational, capable of challenging the laws of physics and the force of gravity. In the late 80s and the 90s he travelled the world to participate in major national and international exhibitions: from Kassel, for the ninth edition of Documenta in 1992, to the Biennale in Venice in 1993. Nagasawa establishes the perfect balance between eastern and western art, and his works are metaphors of travel in time and space, constantly striving to achieve a structural balance between weight and lightness. He has created numerous outdoor permanent installations, designed in and for a specific site and created on location, in an intense dialogue between environment and sculpture, between artwork and space. His works are included in the collections of the Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp, and a number of Japanese museums exhibit his work (National Museum of Modern Art, Osaka; Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima; Municipality of Adachi-ku, Tokyo; Contemporary Art Center, Mito). Nagasawa died in 2018.
2013
“Ombra verde”, museo Macro, sala Enel, Rome, Italy
“Nagasawa”, Torrione Passari, Molfetta, Italy
2009
“Giardino Dormiveglia”, Toyama Memorial Museum, Kawajima, Japan
“Dove tende aurora”, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
2008
“Giardino rovesciato”, villa medicea La Magia, Quarrata, Italy
2007
“Tindari”, scultura permanente, Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan
2006
“i la nave va…”, castello di Santa Barbara, Alicante, Spain
“Nagasawa alla Torre di Guevara”, Torre di Guevara di Ischia, Italy
2002
Palazzo delle Stelline, Milan, Italy
1996
Fundaciò Pilar i Juan Mirò, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
1993
Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna-Villa delle Rose, Bologna, Italy
1988
P.A.C. (Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea), Milan, Italy
1980
Galleria Wirz, Milan, Italy
1970
Galleria François Lambert, Milan, Italy
2013
Arteinmemoria7, Sinagoga di Ostia Antica, Rome, Italy
“Ri-nascere”, Nascita e rinascita tra arte antica e arte contemporanea, Museo del Territorio Biellese, Biella, Italy
2010
“Il grande gioco”, Rotonda di via Besana, Milan, Italy
2009
“Costanti”del classico nell’arte del XX e XXI secolo, Fondazione Puglisi Cosentino, Catania, Italy
“Camere #9: FAGANA”, RAM, Rome, Italy
2006
“XII Biennale internazionale di scultura di Carrara” la contemporaneità dell’arte, Museo della scultura, Carrara, Italy
2003
“Le opere e i Giorni”, “Pensatoio” e “Barca”, Padula, Italy
2002
Exempla 2, Pinacoteca Civica e Museo Archeologico, Teramo, Italy
Gli Ori editore, Testo di J. De Sanna, pp 134/137, Teramo, Italy
2001
“Made in Italy?”, Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy
tdi A Bonito Oliva, pag.40, Skirà, Milan, Italy
1993
Biennale di Venezia, Venezia, Italy
1992
“Documenta IX”, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany
1988
Biennale di Venezia, Venezia, Italy
1982
Biennale di Venezia, Venezia, Italy
1976
Biennale di Venezia, Venezia, Italy
1973
Biennale di Parigi, France
1972
Biennale di Venezia, Venezia, Italy
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