The distance between two continents was not enough to impede the meeting between the Mineiro¹ sculptor, Amilcar de Castro (1920-2002) and Japanese ceramicist Kimi Nii (1947), even if this meeting should only happen now, 22 years after the Brazilian artist’s death. In the exhibition, Cut, fold, fit, works by the two artists that justify this timely encounter between East and West have been brought together, drawing attention to the formal kinship between the sculptures in iron and corten steel by Amilcar, produced between 1980 and 1996, and the works in ceramics made by Kimi Nii from 1989 to 2023.

In both cases, the cut of the pieces is the trait that signals a structural constructive based proposition, despite differences in procedure that distance the two artists from the syntax of Russian historical constructivism. Amilcar had breathed new life into this language even before he had signed up to the Manifesto Neoconcreto in 1959, inventing a technique in 1952 that came to be known as “cut and fold”, an operation in iron that resulted in three-dimensional forms originating from drawings on paper or cardboard. 

Kimi Nii, following in the tradition of Japanese ceramics, took off from the malleable nature of clay and interacted with Amilcar’s invention. Instigated by the cut of the twisted and folded iron sheets of the Mineiro sculptor, Kimi reengaged with a practice common among the constructivist pioneers, reintroducing openings, typical of the Russian school, into her ceramic sculptures. On different paths, both arrived at the same destination: the emergence of geometric figures formed by a void.

In the gaps opened up by the blowtorch in pieces by the Mineiro artist a light appears that casts triangles and squares into the space. For exclusively comparative purposes, this is a procedure that Japanese architect Tadao Ando (1941) would go on to repeat years later in the church of the Japanese city of Ibaraki (in 1999), where the form of the cross is defined by the outside light as it pours in through the voids in the chapel wall.

Both in the case of Amilcar’s sculptures and in those of Kimi Nii, the ambiguous appearance of the materials helps make this relationship explicit. Ceramic, iron and corten steel present subtle chromatic differences, but the irreversible action of time deepens the similarity among these materials. Rust finds correspondence in the chromatic differences determined by the length of time that the ceramic is fired.

Another point of proximity: these pieces, despite their real weight (some more than one hundred kilos), become sufficiently light to interact with the space and suggest new configurations depending on how the viewer moves around them.

A further characteristic that brings Amilcar and Kimi’s work together is the suggestion of a portal for the passage of light. In the case of the Mineiro artist, this takes the form of gaps or incisions that divide the block of iron or steel. In a movement of retraction, Kimi’s sculpture in ceramic closes in on itself, taking advantage of this light to emphasise the geometric form by way of openings in the body of the pieces. One is apparently the inverse of the other. But only apparently.

It is essential to consider the history that separates Japan from Brazil when observing this issue of identity and difference. Japan remained closed for centuries, opening up gradually to the West. Imperfection was incorporated into Japanese ceramic art as a way of contesting the monstrous perfection demanded by Chinese master ceramicists on their disciples. This “imperfection” expressed the Japanese approach to interacting with the Western antipode.

In time: this flexibility did not mean formal compromise. Kimi’s incisions in the ceramic are as precise as the scratches on Lucio Fontana’s canvases. The work with volumes as rigorous as the construction of a sculpture by Brancusi or Sérgio Camargo.

This aspect is seldom explored when one speaks of the work of Kimi Nii, an artist schooled in industrial design and the daughter of an architect. Her familiarity with Western art harks back to childhood, when her father took her, aged 10, to see works on show at the 4th edition of the Bienal de São Paulo. Kimi’s passion for Morandi, a painter awarded at that particular international exhibition and among Amilcar’s favourite artists, was ignited there in 1957, the year of the first neo-concrete exhibition at which the Mineiro artist also participated.

At this same Bienal, Amilcar became familiar with the work of Basque artist Jorge Oteiza (1908-2003), who took the prize for sculpture at the exhibition. The impact of this meeting was massive. The geometrical forms generated by incorporating empty space in Oteiza’s work, a counterpoint to Max Bill’s orthodoxy, led Amilcar to refine his cut and fold technique. In terms of Morandi, Amilcar saw a strong affinity between his own sculpture and the Italian’s painting. Both rejected the spectacle, were extremely discrete and operated in an anti-illusionist register. Ultimately, the two artists were moved by formal clarity and ethics.

It is worth remembering that Kimi Nii brought Morandi’s bottles into the three-dimensional. Produced in ceramic, they revealed Kimi’s passion for the Italian’s work. She achieved this by subverting the relationship between figure and background, in which both become muddled on a unidimensional plane. One must emphasise that Amilcar’s cut-fold method, exemplified in many of the works in the exhibition, is the metamorphosis of drawings in which the rigid line cannot be removed by any eraser. The incision in the metal has precisely the this character. In ceramic, the groove is the same. As in life, the two show us, (almost) everything is irreversible.

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1. (Adjective) A person or thing from the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.