Hidetoshi Nagasawa (Manchuria 1940 – Milan 2018), a Japanese artist who arrived in Italy in 1967 after a legendary journey by bicycle from Japan through Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, was one of the most original sculptors who have characterized the contemporary art scene. Known and successful in recent years thanks to his numerous “gardens” (real small architectures that can be crossed in natural and urban spaces) located between Japan and Italy (including the Fattoria di Celle, Palazzo Pretorio in Certaldo, Villa Medicea La Magia in Quarrata, Public Gardens of Montelupo Fiorentino), sculptures in public spaces such as Palazzo Ducale in Mantua and articulated sculptures in marble and iron, composed of balances and voids, he founded the conceptual basis of his research in the seventies. Interested in different types of work (from copper to paper, from wood to marble, from bronze to iron, from stone to fabric) and subtle mental processes and thought, Nagasawa has been able to bring together East and West and connect opposite worlds such as visible and invisible, the lightness of dreams and the heaviness of matter. The book Hidetoshi Nagasawa. La scultura degli anni Settanta, edited by one of his most attentive and assiduous exegetes such as Bruno Corà and published by Gli Ori on the occasion of an anthological exhibition at the gallery il Ponte in Florence, is in fact an important trace of the moment in which the art of Nagasawa planted the roots of a language that he would develop in the following forty years of work.

The presentation of the book, besides officially welcoming the figure of Corà as a member of the Scientific Committee of Palazzo Collicola (together with Professor Thierry Dufrene and Architect David Palterer), is also the first in a series of initiatives that certify generous donations made to the Carandente Library of Palazzo Collicola by various publishers of volumes of modern and contemporary art published in recent years. In addition to Gli Ori, the initiative is endorsed by Johan & Levi, Magonza and Maretti, institutions such as the Fondazione Prada and the Fondazione Carriero or the Galleria Dello Scudo, and other important publishers and cultural institutions.

Next event will be held in July with the presentation of the extensive and documented monograph on Leoncillo, published by Skira for the Galleria dello Scudo and edited by Enrico Mascelloni, entitled Leoncillo. Materia radicale, while on September 27th the book Padre e figlio, published by Magonza Editore, will be presented in the presence of the artist and the editor of the book, the art critic Alberto Fiz.