SHIGEO TOYA

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.

If we regard sculpture as a form that broke away from a relief-like state, connected to the natural world, and came to emphasise 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.

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.