Toshihisa Yoda Continuum, 1967 - Today, Part 2: 2000 - Today

We're excited to invite you to the opening reception of Continuum, 1967–Today: Selected Works, 2000–Today, the second chapter of our exhibition of works by Toshihisa Yoda.

The first chapter of the show, followed Yoda's earliest geometric abstractions up to 1990, work defined by discipline, structure, line, and color. This new chapter, opening July 9, picks up in the early 2000s and follows the artist somewhere unexpected: the canvas gives way to relief, found materials begin to enter the work, and a single triangular form — discovered almost by accident — sets off decades of invention that continue today.

That discovery happened on a family outing. While visiting Coney Island in the early 2000s, Yoda's wife, Junko, pointed out a cluster of wild umbrella plants growing near the boardwalk. When he cut into one of the stems, he saw his own work staring back at him in its triangular cross-section. It's the kind of close attention, to seasonal change, to the structure of a plant, to the slow passage of time, that Yoda has long called "city nature," a sensibility that runs through everything he makes.

Yoda was born in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, in 1940, and has lived and worked in New York since 1967, drawing equally on his upbringing in Japan and six decades spent absorbing the visual language of the city.

His paintings are held in three of Japan's national art museum collections — the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; and the National Museum of Art, Osaka, along with the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, the Ohara Museum of Art, and the IBM headquarters collection in New York, among others.

You don't need to have seen Part One to appreciate Part Two, this chapter holds its own, a portrait of an artist still very much in the middle of crafting his creative legacy. We hope you'll join us.

Exhibition dates
July 9 - August 7

Opening reception
Friday July 10
6-8PM
40 Lispenard St, Tribeca

Download the press release here.