Shigeo Toya, Body of the Gaze: Semi-Sculpture 1, 2025, wood, acrylic, 61.5×40.5×33.5cm Photo by Shigeo Muto
Shigeo Toya, Body of the Gaze: Semi-Sculpture 1, 2025, wood, acrylic, 61.5×40.5×33.5cm Photo by Shigeo Muto
Body of the Gaze: Semi-Sculpture
Upcoming
Sat, 18 OctoberSat, 22 November, 2025
ShugoArts Roppongi
Upcoming
About Exhibition
ShugoArts is pleased to present Body of the Gaze: Semi-Sculpture, a solo exhibition of new works by Shigeo Toya opening on October 18. Toya’s work on the Body of the Gaze series has been ongoing since 2019.
Shigeo TOYA, Body of the Gaze, 2019
Shigeo TOYA, Body of the Gaze: from Scatter to Linkage, from Linkage to Accumulation, 2022
Shigeo TOYA, Body of the Gaze, 2019, wood, wood ash, acrylic, variable size, 9 pcs Photo by Shigeo Muto
In Body of the Gaze: Semi-Sculpture, unveiled for the first time in this exhibition, Toya applies the prefix “semi-” to sculpture. What is the sculptural conception underpinning this approach?
Relief existed before the golden age of sculpture in ancient Greece, and the standard view in modern Western art history holds that the process was a forward-moving evolution, advancing “from relief to sculpture.”
Toya’s concept of “semi-sculpture” reverses this trajectory, moving instead from sculpture to relief. However, he is not pursuing a return to the primitive relief of the pre-Greek era. What he envisions with semi-sculpture is the possibility of a mode of sculpture that contains unseen dimensions half-hidden from view.
Shigeo TOYA, Body of the Gaze – Accumulation, 2021, wood, wood ash, acrylic, 142x171x201cm (a set of 13 pieces)
If we regard sculpture as a form that broke away from a relief-like state, connected to the natural world, and came to emphasize independence through separation, then Toya’s semi-sculpture can be seen as a form that turns back toward nature and seeks a renewed coexistence with it.
While primitive relief did not necessarily presuppose an unseen world extending behind it, semi-sculpture differs in that it alludes to an invisible realm and is conceived with its presence in mind.
Shigeo TOYA, POMPEII・・79 〈Part 1〉, 1974/1987, concrete, 15x60x60cm, 45x45x170cm, 4pcs)
Toya exhibited POMPEII・・79 (1974) fifty years ago, at the age of 27. Since then, working from Japan in dialogue with the Western sculptural tradition, he has pursued a sweeping narrative shaped by his own vision. With Body of the Gaze: Semi-Sculpture, we present the latest chapter in Toya’s sculptural exploration.
Also on view, and offering entry points to the world of Body of the Gaze: Semi-Sculpture, are Falling (1992), one of Toya’s best-known works, and the large-scale drawing Visions of Woods (2001). We look forward to welcoming you to this exhibition.
ShugoArts, September 2025
Related texts:
Shigeo TOYA Interview in his Chichibu Studio, October 2016
Toya, Shigeo. “A History of Sculpture Without Rodin: Part 1-3.” Geijutsu Shincho, Shinchosha, 2023
Shigeo TOYA, Falling, 1992, wood, ash, acrylic, wire, 17×60(D)cm
Shigeo TOYA, Visions of Woods, 2001, Japanese ink on Japanese paper, 305x364cm
Information
Shigeo Toya solo exhibition
Body of the Gaze: Semi-Sculpture
Body of the Gaze: Semi-Sculpture
Dates
Saturday 18 October – Saturday 22 November 2025
Opening reception
18 October 2pm-5pm
Venue
ShugoArts
Hours
11am ‒ 6pm, Closed on Sun, Mon and Public Holidays
Shigeo TOYA
Born in Nagano, Japan, in 1947. Currently lives and works in Saitama. Toya started his artistic career with his attempt to reconstruct sculpture as a medium, which had been deconstructed by the preceding art movements such as postminimalism and mono-ha. Since the 1970s, the artist has diligently pursued the principles and structures of sculpture, which resonate with the epistemological foundations of our very existence, underscoring their essence and possibility through his artmaking practice. By manipulating various art histories of all times and places, encompassing the period of cave paintings and Greco-Roman sculptures to contemporary art, with his bona fide sculptural philosophy, Toya has been recognized as one of the leading sculptors in Japan, Asia and the Pacific at large. The artist received the Art Encouragement Prize of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Japan in 2004 and his Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon in 2009. He is also a Professor Emeritus at Musashino Art University. A solo exhibition is planned at ShugoArts (Tokyo) in fall 2025.
Selected exhibitions: Toya Shigeo Sculpture, Nagano Prefectural Art Museum, Nagano, 2022-2023, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, 2023; Body of the Gaze: from Scatter to Linkage, from Linkage to Accumulation, ShugoArts, Tokyo, 2022; Shigeo Toya Forest – Lake: Regeneration and Memory, Ichihara Lakeside Museum, Chiba, 2021; Body of the Gaze, ShugoArts, Tokyo, 2019; Shigeo Toya−Sculpture to Emerge, Musashino Art University Museum & Library, Tokyo, 2017; Memories in the cave, Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Shizuoka, 2011-12; Shigeo Toya : Folds, Gazes and Anima of the Woods, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Aichi, 2003; The 3rd Kwangju Biennale, Kwangju, 2000; Forest of Visions, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, 1995; Yama – Mori ‒ Mura, Kuma Museum of Art, Ehime, 1994; The First Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1993; The 43rd Venice Biennale, Japanese Pavilion, Venice, 1988; Selected publications: Shigeo Toya−Sculpture and Words (Choukoku-To-Kotoba）1974-2013, Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, 2014; Shigeo Toya−Sculpture to Emerge, Musashino Art University Museum & Library, 2017
