🧑🎨 If L’Homme au chapeau melon (Man in a Bowler Hat) René Magritte’s 1964 canvas, embodies the mystery of identity and the tension between what we see and what remains concealed, then the work Untitled by the Japanese artist Katsumi Nakai, 1967 acrylic on shaped wood, reveals one, or perhaps many, possible identities.
At first, it appears as a neutral man in a bowler hat, perfectly defined by the contours of its wooden silhouette. Then, with a simple gesture, it unfolds into space, blooming like a flower in its rightful season. Suddenly, it turns red, then reflects itself in a striped pattern, offering a second way of seeing, and perhaps a second personality.
✨Works of art are like dreams: they are meant to be observed, experienced, and followed. Let this be an invitation for the summer, to open yourself to the world and to new experiences. As art reminds us, there is always a time to return to a state of stillness and, for a while, gently draw the curtain closed.
***
🧑🎨 Se L’Homme au chapeau melon (L’uomo con la bombetta) tela del 1964 di René Magritte, rappresenta il mistero dell’identità e il contrasto tra ciò che vediamo e ciò che resta nascosto, il dipinto Untitled, in acrilico su legno sagomato del 1967 realizzato dall’artista giapponese Katsumi Nakai, è la rivelazione di una o più identità possibili. Dapprima è un uomo con la bombetta neutro, sagomato perfettamente nella sua forma lignea, poi con un gesto si apre nello spazio, sboccia come un fiore nella stagione giusta. Ecco che diventa rosso e poi si specchia in un pattern a righe che gli concede una seconda possibilità di lettura e forse di personalità.
✨Le opere d’arte sono come i sogni, vanno guardate, viste e seguite. Che sia un invito per l’estate, aprirsi al mondo e a nuove esperienze. C’è sempre un tempo, come insegna l’arte, in cui tornare in posizione neutra e chiudere, provvisoriamente, il sipario.
🔹Katsumi Nakai, Untitled, 1967, acrylic on shaped wood.
***
Studio Gariboldi
Mon - Fri | 11am - 1 pm | 2pm - 6pm
Corso Monforte 23, 20122, Milan
✉️ Info: press@studiogariboldi.com
#giovannigariboldi #studiogariboldi #katsuminakai #renémagritte
🔹#FullofArt è un progetto in cui l’arte si intreccia alla letteratura, al cinema e alla musica.
🌱Scrittori, saggisti, poeti, psicologi, filmaker, pittori, storici dell’arte si alternano in galleria e dialogano tra loro e con il pubblico.
La dimensione degli incontri è intima e approfondita, per questo l’ingresso è libero ma la prenotazione è obbligatoria.
📍È un format di Elisabetta Bucciarelli per #StudioGariboldi.
Comunicazione e accoglienza Linda Morando di Custoza.
Banco Libri @scatolalilla di Cristina di Canio.
✉️ Per info: press@studiogariboldi.com
***
•18 giugno 2026, Francesca Scotti, Marta Fanasca, Damiana De Gennaro, Viaggio in Giappone: la geografia e le case
•21 maggio 2026, Paolo Linetti, Chiara Bottelli, Le preziose carte giapponesi di Lucio Passerini
•23 aprile 2026, Paolo Di Stefano, Tullio Pericoli, Una giornata meravigliosa
•26 marzo 2026, Linda Bertelli, Marta Equi Pierazzini, Martina Cavalli, La critica secondo Carla Lonzi
•11 dicembre 2025, Eugenio Gazzola, Paolo Di Stefano, Tullio Pericoli, L’Antivassalli
•20 novembre 2025, Fluido, un reading di e con Roberta Scorranese
•13 novembre 2025, Francesca Scotti, Francesca Pieri, L’arte di separarsi
•11 novembre 2025, Stefano Turina, Natsuko Toyofuku, Omaggio a Katsumi Nakai e Tomonori Toyofuku
•16 ottobre 2025, Gianni Biondillo, La costruzione del potere. Perché l’architettura fascista non esiste
•25 settembre 2025, Giorgio Cardazzo, Maurizio Zorat, Daniele Nalin, Who is he?
#giovannigariboldi #incontriletterari
On view
🔹PARIS – MILAN
Between the mid-1960s and the early 1970s, Paris and Milan played a pivotal role in the artistic development of Key Hiraga and Aiko Miyawaki. After settling in Paris in 1965, Hiraga created his celebrated series The Elegant Life of Mr. H, a visionary and ironic body of work that captured the vitality of urban life while reflecting his engagement with the French movement of Narrative Figuration. During the same years, Miyawaki worked between Tokyo, Milan, and Paris, developing the brass and steel sculptures for which she became internationally known, including the works produced between 1966 and 1969.
🌱 While Hiraga explored modernity through vivid, imaginative narratives, Miyawaki expressed it through refined sculptural forms shaped by light and space. Although their artistic languages differed, both artists found in Europe an important environment for exchange with contemporary avant-garde movements, while maintaining a distinctly Japanese sensibility. Their works offer two complementary perspectives on the postwar experience of space and time, a dialogue that has also emerged through the recent exhibitions dedicated to both artists by Studio Gariboldi.
***
Photo 1. Aiko Miyawaki, Work, installation, 1965-1968, brass, structure containing 289 pipes.
Photo 2. Giovanni preparing the exhibition Aiko Miyawaki, Sculpture 1965–1975, in 2022
Photo 3. Aiko Miyawaki, Sculpture 1965–1975, Installation view, Studio Gariboldi 2022. Courtesy Ph Michele Sereni
Photo 4. Key Hiraga, untitled, 1971, oil on canvas
Photo 5. Linda preparing the exhibition Key Hiraga’s room, 2026
Photo 6. Elisabetta looking at the exhibition Key Hiraga’s room, 2026
***
Monday – Friday
11:00 am – 1:00 pm | 2:00 – 6:00 pm
Saturday by appointment
Info: press@studiogariboldi.com
www.studiogariboldi.com
Corso Monforte 23, Milano
KEY HIRAGA’S ROOM
1970’s Works
7 May – 16 July 2026
HANDS
Hands seek, welcome, brush against, hold, tremble, heal, mend, support, protect, intertwine, reveal, and ultimately let go, transforming every gesture into a silent form of relationship, attention, and care.
In the paintings of #KeyHiraga, hands seem to express a yearning toward the other. In an age marked by distance and mediation, the act of touching and grazing another body takes on meanings different from those it held when the works were first conceived and created. For today’s viewer, it becomes the search for presence and contact.
The artist’s figures appear to entrust to their hands what their faces can no longer convey. Through gesture, the body attempts to transcend the boundary that separates individuals, imprisoned within appearances and imposed roles. Within proximity, there may still exist the possibility of mutual recognition.
The grasping hands, in their unease, also evoke desire and obsession, yet at the same time a fragile longing for belonging. In this way, Key Hiraga transforms the body into an emotional language and touch into a poetic form of connection.
Picture: Key Hiraga, Untitled, 1971, oil on canvas, details, 130 × 165 cm.
The exhibition is part of the project ITALY-JAPAN, Japanese artists in Milan since 1960s, held under the patronage of the Consulate General of Japan in Milan.
Monday – Friday
11:00 am – 1:00 pm | 2:00 – 6:00 pm
Saturday by appointment
Info: press@studiogariboldi.com
www.studiogariboldi.com
Corso Monforte 23, Milano
#studiogariboldi
#artemoderna
#japaneseartist
🔹#KeyHiraga was a Japanese painter born in Tokyo in 1936. After graduating in economics from Rikkyo University, he devoted himself entirely to painting. In the 1960s he moved to Paris, where he developed a style influenced by Pop Art and psychedelic art.
🌱His works explored themes of desire, consumer society, and sexuality through an ironic and satirical figurative language. He died in 2000 in Hakone, Japan.
***
🔹KEY HIRAGA’S ROOM
1970s Works
7 MAY - 16 JULY 2026
Pics: details of Hiraga’s works.
✨Monday - Friday
11:00 am - 1:00 pm | 2:00 - 6:00 pm
Saturday by appointment
📍info: press@studiogariboldi.com
www.studiogariboldi.com
Corso Monforte 23, Milan
#modernart #japaneseart #contemporaryart #studiogariboldi
The mouth in the paintings of #KeyHiraga is a central and recurring element.
It often appears distorted, gigantic, or caricatured, immediately attracting the viewer’s attention.
Through this figure, the artist expresses desires, instincts, and the tensions of modern society.
The mouth becomes a symbol of communication, but also of consumption and excessive pleasure.
***
🔹KEY HIRAGA’S ROOM
1970s Works
7 MAY - 16 JULY 2026
Pics: details of Hiraga’s works.
✨Monday - Friday
11:00 am - 1:00 pm | 2:00 - 6:00 pm
Saturday by appointment
📍info: press@studiogariboldi.com
www.studiogariboldi.com
Corso Monforte 23, Milan
#modernart #japaneseart #contemporaryart #studiogariboldi
Studio Gariboldi è una Galleria d’Arte aperta a Milano nel 1997. È specializzata nell’arte del dopoguerra, con particolare attenzione all’Informale europeo, alle avanguardie degli anni Sessanta e al dialogo artistico tra Italia e Giappone.
