A body of work shaped by a deep understanding of the history of sculpture, expanding its imagination toward the world while remaining rooted in the land of Japan

Asolo exhibition "In Memory of Shigeo Toya: The Sculptor" in honor of the sculptor Shigeo Toya, who passed away on 15 April, from 6 June 2026, at ShugoArts. Shigeo Toya continued to work energetically for more than fifty years following his debut in 1975, presenting works every year without interruption in exhibitions and biennials both in Japan and internationally. His exhibition Body of the Gaze: Semi-Sculpture, held at ShugoArts last year, became his final solo exhibition, marking the culmination of a lifelong commitment to sculpture that continued until his final years.

戸谷成雄, 森—I, 1984, wood, iron, frame, acrylic, 103x39x22cm
Copyright the artist, Courtesy of ShugoArts, Photo by Shigeo Muto
Shigeo TOYA, woods̶I, 1984, wood, iron, frame, acrylic, 103x39x22cm

戸谷成雄, 視線体：半彫刻, 2025, シュウゴアーツ
Copyright the artist, Courtesy of ShugoArts, Photo by Shigeo Muto
Shigeo Toya, Body of the Gaze: Semi-Sculpture, 2025, ShugoArts

This exhibition will feature a screening of an interview filmed in Shigeo Toyaʼs studio in 2016, alongside works including woods̶I, the first piece he created with a chainsaw in 1984, as well as works from his final series, Semi-Sculpture.

Shigeo Toya

Born in Nagano, Japan in 1947, passed away in 2026. 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, and was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette in 2025. He is also a Professor Emeritus at Musashino Art University.

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.