• TODA Yusuke

    Link to: TODA Yusuke Website

    CAREER
    1962
    Born in Hiroshima
    1990
    Musashino Art University Postgraduate course, Fine Art, Sculpture, MA
    1994
    Japan Air Lines Foundation, “The Sky Day Artists Fellowship” recipient
    1995-’96
    Studied as JAL Art Fellow in Florence (Italy) and London (UK)
    1996
    Royal College of Art, Sculpture School, Post Experience Programme (UK)
    2000
    Japan Foundation, Artists Fellowship for Traveling Overseas recipient (Germany)
    2005
    Djerassi Resident Artists Program, The 2004 Leah Middlebrook and Norio Sugano Fellowship recipient
    PERSONAL EXHIBITIONS
    2009
    Plaza Gallery, Tokyo (’06, ’01, ’99, ’97)
    2005
    Gallery GAN, Tokyo (’04)
    SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS AND OTHERS2010
    New Heavy in Nogata, Nogata Municipal TANIO Museum, Nogata, Fukuoka Prefecture
    2002
    Busan Biennale (invited), Busan Metropolitan Museum and Busan Olympic Park, Busan City, Republic of Korea
    2001
    The 14th Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition of Japan, Ube Open-Air Sculpture Museum, Yamaguchi Prefecture (’91)
    2000
    The 6th KAJIMA Sculpture Competition, Premium Prize recipient, Kajima KI Building Atrium, Tokyo
    1999
    Shimanami coastal highway ’99 Sculpture Competition, Grand Prize recipient, Mukai-jima Island, Hiroshima Prefecture
    1998
    The 15th Kobe Suma rikyu Park Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Premium Prize and Tokyo National Modern Art Museum Prize recipient, Suma detached palace Park, Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture
    1997
    The 3rd Oita Asian Sculpture Exhibition, Grand Prize recipient, Asakura Fumio Memorial Art Museum, Oita Prefecture
    1992
    The 4th Tokyo Open-Air Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Governor Prize recipient, Kinuta Park, Tokyo
    SYMPOSIUMS AND ARTISTS IN RESIDENCES
    2010
    The 13th Friuli – Venezia Giulia International Stone Sculptute Symposium (invited), ITALY
    2009
    The 2nd Penza International Sculpture Symposium, steel sculpture section (invited), Penza, RUSSIA
    2006
    The 2nd Gwalior Sculptors Symposium (invited), Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, INDIA
    2004
    Djerassi Resident Artists Program (invited), Woodside, California, USA
    2000
    Lapidea 2000 International Stone Sculpture Symposium (invited), Mayen, GERMANY
    1998
    International Artists Camp in Aso (invited), Oguni Town Aso-county, Kumamoto Prefecture

  • Gate for vapour / Dancing at 60-year-old

    Daté Kan Stone (two-pyroxene basaltic andesite), stainless steel
    Exhibition Area(variable) ：880 ✕ 660cm
    Photo from left : ① 90 × 80 x 242(h)cm, ② 90 X 64 X 220(h) cm, ③ 81 X 80 x 225(h)cm, ④ 118 X 100 X 240(h) cm, ⑤ 88 x 85 X 248(h)cm, ⑥ 88 X 80 x 259(h)cm, ⑦108 X 66 X 219(h)cm

  • in the matter cycle / rebirth

    Stainless Steel, Scrapped Wooden, Boat, FRP, and Paint
    108×80×196 (h)cm

  • welling up / in the matter cycle

    Stainless steel, White granite

    108×80×196 (h)cm

  • Gate for the stream of time/In matter cycles

    Steel, Brass, Urethane and epoxy coating, Brass leaf, Gold leaf

    220×235×540 (h)cm

    ‘Su-i-do’ is a Japanese word that, up until modern times, was used to mean ‘the natural environment’ and ‘climate’ but here it literally means ‘sui’ (water) and ‘doh’ (earth).
    The world we live in is made up of various physical matter, some of which moves slowly and some of which moves at lightening speeds, but all of which is just a transient part of the never-ending cycle.
    These instants twinkle here and there.

  • Sharing an evanescent time / Land marks to Rocky Flats from Los Alamos

    Steel, Sisal hemp rope

    L:180×160×500 (h)cm
    R:150×140×510 (h)cm
    Installation area flexible

    If you carefully look around the grounds of the Takaku Shrine, there are so many kinds of secondary shrines, large and small. They probably enshrine local deities, but I was told that nobody now knows when they were built, or why. What’s more, the fact that I created my sculpture here is one more thing that will vanish from human memory. At least, I want to share transient and precious time with our contemporaries.

  • Oracle under the trees

    Steel, Stone (andesite) and Others
    200×240×640 (h)cm

    In Nishikata Park, I discovered a tree shadow that was out of balance with its surroundings, making a wild impression. On the ground, rusty metal fragments and concrete chunks protruded.
    But the trees I looked up at were stirred in spring by pleasant breezes through their new leaves, the light dapples through them in summer, and their falling leaves dance slowly down in autumn.
    I wanted to link the sublime waiting above with the ground.

  • The J. Letzel’s oval in a peaceful site

    Hon-komatsu andesite, Synthetic rubber, Steel, Wood, Plant seeds, Pieces of old books
    180×300×360 (h)cm

    If you stand on the edge of the hill, where pottery fragments of the Jomon period have been unearthed, a scenery of terraced hills that interweaves humanity and nature spreads before you. What did people of the distant past see from this place?
    Stuffing the interior of the elliptical ring thickness with full of plant seeds and pieces of paper from a Japanese text on local topography written in the early eighth century. I offered up the sculpture with only the weight of the natural stone at the edge of a barley field. By linking a simple form to the place it stands in, I wanted to call forth the animistic life force that is hidden in the soil.

  • Latent Spirits of Trees In The Village

    Wood, Stainless steel, Manila-hemp rope, Carbon steel

    120×120×400 cm 2500 kg
    120×490×145 cm 2200 kg
    Installation size changeable

    The day I first visited this place, I felt it was an isolated space, despite the bright and open lie of the land. Standing on a road between fallow fields and a bamboo grove, I noticed that all I could see in the distance were the mountains far beyond, and the blue sky. In that moment I had an intense illusion of being surrounded by these cultivated hillsides. I thought “I want to make sculptures here”.

  • “In a gap in the flow in May”

    Deserted boat, FRP, Paint, Cloth, Steel, Stainless steel

    350×160×320 cm
    250 kg

    Until now, I’ve kept on making big, heavy sculptures for a long time. In a way, that is my taste, but it’s also the way I work. Nevertheless, it may not be necessary to have size and massive presence to cover some of the themes of my work, which are “Things that can’t be captured in a photo or drawn in a picture”, “Things that can’t be created from a concept alone” and “Things which change the atmosphere of the of the place they stand in”. So, for the last five years I’ve been working simultaneously on very small pieces and pieces which aggressively engage the gallery space. What I’m trying this time at Amabiki Village is of the latter type. I have a renewed sense of the pleasure of feeling and thinking about site-specific “pieces which can only be done here and now”.