Yutaka Toyota (Tendo, Japão 1931)
Yutaka Toyota was a painter, sculptor, draftsman, printmaker and set designer. In the early 1950s he attended the Tokyo University of the Arts in Japan. He moved to Brazil in 1962 and the following year received prizes at the 2nd Salão do Trabalho [Labor Salon] in São Paulo and at the 12th Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna [São Paulo Salon of Modern Art]. Between 1965 and 1968 he lived in Milan, Italy, where he met the designer Bruno Munari (1907 - 1998). In 1969 he received an award at the 10th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo. In 1964 he held his first solo exhibition at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio Grande do Sul (MAM/RS). In 1965 he received an award at the 1st Salão Esso de Jovens Artistas [Esso Salon of Young Artists], and in 1968 he received prizes at the 2nd Bienal de Artes Plásticas da Bahia, in Salvador, and at the Salão de Santo André, in São Paulo. That same year he took part in the 12th Salão Seibi in São Paulo.
From the 1970s he produced sculptures for public spaces and buildings in Brazil and abroad, including Praça da Sé (1978) and the Hotel Maksoud Plaza (1979) in São Paulo, as well as Toyotomi Park in Hokkaido, Japan (1979). In 1973 he held a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, and in 1974 he took part in the exhibition Japanese Artists in the Americas at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. He took part in the Panorama de Arte Atual Brasileira at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM/SP) in 1972 and 1985, receiving an award in the first of these. In 1991 he was named best sculptor by the Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte (APCA) in São Paulo.
Critical Commentary
In the early 1960s, Yutaka Toyota's painting and drawing tended toward Informalism with "Zen Buddhist" resonances, expressed in the use of circular forms, according to the art historian Walter Zanini. In Abstração Cinza [Grey Abstraction] (1963), the recurring circular form appears superimposed on a horizontal band and filled by another, rectangular one. This superimposition gives the impression that the circle projects outward, toward the viewer; the greenish-grey background becomes lighter around the circle, reinforcing this impression and giving volume. Despite the constant presence of geometric forms, the gesture that gives rise to them is perceptible, which is why Toyota's work can be understood within the informal tendency.
The works Espaço Negativo Infinito [Infinite Negative Space] and Espaço In-Yo [In-Yo Space], both from 1969, seem to comment on Op Art while already foreshadowing the artist's later phase, in which geometry and gesture separate to make greater room for perceptual illusion - Espaço In-Yo rests on a concave mirrored base. Again according to Zanini, this turn in Toyota's work is due above all to his contact with the Italian artist and designer Bruno Munari (1907 - 1998). In the late 1960s Munari was producing geometric sculptures structured like complex paper folds, a solution also present in Toyota's Espaço Metamorfose [Metamorphosis Space], in which the balance of the metal's weight is sustained by meticulously structured points and planes.
In the following years Toyota concentrated mainly on producing sculptures conceived for large spaces. Although gesture is no longer present, replaced by the precise contours characteristic of the aluminum works, flexibility and rhythm persist. In Espaço Cósmico Ressonância [Cosmic Space Resonance] (1978), the reflection on the modulated metal dialogues with the surroundings. Both Zanini and Munari, in texts on Toyota's work, draw attention to the distortion through reflection that the artist creates, both in the relationship between work and environment and within the work itself, between juxtaposed forms in which one reflects the other - as in Espaço Cósmico [Cosmic Space] (1979). Also noteworthy is the alternation between solid and open planes, responsible for the rhythm of most of the works.
Critiques
"(...) more than any other Japanese-Brazilian artist, he fits squarely into an internationalizing context and produces a body of work in which, in my view, West and East converge. His language brings together various tendencies - above all European ones - of the last twenty years. At its base lies a constructive, disciplined awareness that seeks the objective and clear organization of forms - which in itself already represents one of the facets also present in the Eastern soul. (I have always been struck by the lesson in 'design' that is the Japanese flag itself; and it is worth recalling the stripped-down simplicity of 'Zen' gardens, in their own way a pure expression of minimalist art.) Against this constructivist background, Toyota superimposes his taste for optical games, a virtual kineticism - occasionally an actual one - his surrender to highly sophisticated and aseptic industrial materials and, in his most recent production, the concept of the 'open work'. Without being 'mobiles' as such, his latest reliefs, in enameled wood, allow for the interference of natural forces or manipulation by the viewer".
Olívio Tavares de Araújo
TOYOTA, Yutaka. Yutaka Toyota. São Paulo: Renato Magalhães Gouvêa Escritório de Arte, 1978. Não paginado.
"Yutaka Toyota painted in an Impressionist manner in Japan; but here among us (since 1962), after a stay in Argentina, he joined the informal current, to which he brought Zen Buddhist overtones (using circular forms). Three years living in Milan, familiarity with Bruno Munari's (1907 - 1998) research into instrumentation and contact with several other artists profoundly changed his aesthetic vision, starting from the very need to express himself through sculpture as environmental creation. The volumes he builds in aluminum, precisely modulated, exclude rigidity and refer poetically to the search for different existences of space on their surfaces, which reflect and distort their surroundings, constituting for the artist his very apprehension of the world. A symbolic aura thus envelops these structures, in which Eastern values endure".
Walter Zanini
ZANINI, Walter (org.). História geral da arte no Brasil - II. São Paulo: Instituto Walther Moreira Salles: Fundação Djalma Guimarães, 1983. p. 688.
"In Japan he painted figuratively, mainly landscapes, developing here among us his personal form of symbolic abstract painting. In São Paulo he came into contact with Hokekyo Buddhism, whose conceptions considerably influenced his worldview and his art. In his painting Toyota associates the cosmic and the human, with an immanentist feeling that fuses spiritual anguish with the intrinsic dynamism of matter and links human hope to a sense of spatiality. He lives intensely the hallucinating tension of our time and the tragedy of man coerced and crushed by alienating social conditions. He aspires to a world of peace and of the unlimited expansion of the human personality. The almost obsessive desire to escape coercion and the search for wide spaces are the characteristic note of his magnificent paintings of recent years. (...) The circle is Toyota's fundamental symbol. A multivalent symbol of the world of energy, of peace and of man, it expresses both the crushing by alienation and the liberating expansion. His paintings always contain circles, Buddhist mandalas, 'small worlds' of anguish and 'great worlds' of hope and cosmic integration".
Mário Schenberg
SCHENBERG, Mário. Pensando a arte. São Paulo: Nova Stella, 1988.
Solo Exhibitions
1957 - Tokyo (Japan) - Solo, at Galeria Matsuya
1961 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Solo, at Galeria Velázquez
1963 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Ambiente
1964 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at MAM/RS
1964 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria São Luiz
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Goeldi
1965 - Rome (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria D'Arte della Casa do Brasil
1966 - Milan (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria D'Arte Il Quartiere delle Botteghe
1967 - Bérgamo (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria 2B
1967 - Bréscia (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria Sicron
1967 - Milan (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria D'Arte Il Grattacielo
1968 - Lago Maggiore (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria M5
1968 - Lecco (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria D'Arte Stefanoni
1968 - Milan (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria M5
1969 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Copacabana Palace
1969 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Mirante das Artes
1970 - Bogotá (Colombia) - Solo, at Galeria San Diego
1970 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1970 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Astreia
1971 - Medellín (Colombia) - Solo, at Museu de Zea
1971 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Ipanema
1971 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Documenta
1971 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Eucatexpo
1972 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Grupo B
1972 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Astreia
1972 - Washington DC (United States) - Solo, at União Panamericana
1973 - Brasília DF - Solo, at Galeria do Hotel Nacional
1973 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Vernissage
1973 - Tokyo (Japan) - Solo, at Galeria Marukyu-Matsukaya
1975 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Contemporânea
1975 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria A Ponte
1976 - Brasília DF - Solo, at Galeria Oscar Seráphico
1976 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1978 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Renato Magalhães Gouvêa Escritório de Arte
1979 - Tokyo (Japan) - Solo, at Galeria Takashimaya
1979 - Yamagata (Japan) - Solo, at Galeria Onuma
1981 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Galeria Bolsa de Arte
1982 - Bogotá (Colombia) - Solo, at Galeria Tempora
1982 - Cali (Colombia) - Solo, at Museu de Arte Moderna La Tertulia
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1983 - Bogotá (Colombia) - Solo, at Galeria San Diego
1983 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Choise
1983 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Skultura
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Anna Maria Niemeyer
1986 - Japan - Solo, at Galeria Oishi Fukuoka
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Anna Maria Niemeyer
1987 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Paulo Figueiredo
1990 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Kate Art Gallery
2001 - São Paulo SP - Sculptures, Paintings, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
2002 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Múltipla de Arte
Group Exhibitions
1963 - Curitiba PR - 20th Paraná Fine Arts Salon, at Biblioteca Pública do Paraná
1963 - São Paulo SP - 12th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia - gold medal
1963 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Labor Salon, at Galeria de Arte das Folhas - 1st prize
1963 - São Paulo SP - 7th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1963 - São Paulo SP - 12th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1965 - São Paulo SP - 8th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1965 - Washington DC (United States) - Esso Salon of Latin American Artists - Pan American Union - 2nd prize of painting
1966 - São Paulo SP - Japanese-Brazilian Artists, at MAC/USP
1967 - Milan (Italy) - Quartiere delle Botteghe - Piazzeta Prize
1967 - São Paulo SP - 9th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1968 - Belo Horizonte MG - 23rd Belo Horizonte City Fine Arts Salon, at MAP
1968 - Campinas SP - 4th Campinas Contemporary Art Salon, at MACC
1968 - Curitiba PR - 25th Paraná Salon, at Biblioteca Pública do Paraná
1968 - Salvador BA - 2nd National Visual Arts Biennial, at MAM/BA - State Government Prize
1968 - Santo André SP - 1st Santo André Contemporary Art Salon, at Paço Municipal
1969 - São Paulo SP - 10th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal - Banco de Boston Prize/acquisition - Itamaraty
1969 - São Paulo SP - 19 Japanese-Brazilian Artists, at MAC/USP
1969 - São Paulo SP - 1st Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1970 - Asunción (Paraguay) - Brazilian Cultural Mission
1970 - Cali (Colombia) - 10th Cali Art Festival - special room
1970 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th JB Art Summary, at MAM/RJ
1971 - Antwerp (Belgium) - 11th Middelheim Sculpture Biennial
1971 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Eletrobrás Art Salon, at MAM/RJ
1971 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Multiples Exhibition, at Petite Galeria
1972 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 10th JB Art Summary, at MAM/RJ
1972 - São Paulo SP - 4th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP - prize MAM/SP Objeto
1972 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Multiplied Art, at Múltipla de Arte
1972 - São Paulo SP - Art/Brazil/Today: 50 Years Later, at Galeria da Collectio
1974 - Toronto (Canada) - Twelve Brazilian Artists, at Museu de Arte Moderna
1975 - Basel (Switzerland) - Four Brazilian Artists
1975 - São Paulo SP - 7th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1978 - Penápolis SP - 3rd Noroeste Visual Arts Salon, at Fundação Educacional de Penápolis. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Penápolis
1978 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Sculpture in Urban Space: 50 Years, at Praça Nossa Senhora da Paz, em Ipanema
1978 - São Paulo SP - 10th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1978 - São Paulo SP - 3 Generations of Japanese-Brazilian Artists, at Galeria Arte Global
1978 - São Paulo SP - The Object in Art: Brazil in the 1960s, at MAB-FAAP
1980 - Penápolis SP - 4th Noroeste Visual Arts Salon, at Fundação Educacional de Penápolis. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Penápolis - guest artist
1981 - Guarujá SP - Open-Air Sculpture, at Hotel Jequitimar
1981 - Osaka (Japan) - Japanese and Latin American Contemporary Art, at Museu de Arte de Osaka
1981 - Porto Alegre RS - Brazilian Artists of the 1960s and 1970s in the Rubem Knijnik Collection, at Espaço NO Galeria Chaves
1981 - São Paulo SP - 13th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1982 - Bauru SP - 80 Years of Brazilian Art
1982 - Marília SP - 80 Years of Brazilian Art
1982 - Penápolis SP - 5th Noroeste Visual Arts Salon, Fundação Educacional de Penápolis. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Penápolis
1982 - São Paulo SP - 80 Years of Brazilian Art, at MAB-FAAP
1982 - São Paulo SP - A Century of Sculpture in Brazil, at Masp
1983 - Belo Horizonte MG - 80 Years of Brazilian Art, at Fundação Clóvis Salgado. Palácio das Artes
1983 - Campinas SP - 80 Years of Brazilian Art, at MACC
1983 - Curitiba PR - 80 Years of Brazilian Art, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea
1983 - Ribeirão Preto SP - 80 Years of Brazilian Art
1983 - Santo André SP - 80 Years of Brazilian Art, at Prefeitura Municipal de Santo André
1984 - Fukushima (Japan) - Renowned Artists of the North, at Museu de Arte de Fukushima
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: A Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - Penápolis SP - 6th Noroeste Visual Arts Salon, at Fundação Educacional de Penápolis. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Penápolis
1985 - São Paulo SP - 16th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1985 - São Paulo SP - Japanese Artists in the MAC Collection, at MAC/USP
1987 - São Paulo SP - 19th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo
1987 - São Paulo SP - 20th Contemporary Art Exhibition, at Chapel Art Show
1988 - Belém PA - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at Fundação Rômulo Maiorana
1988 - Brasília DF - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts
1988 - Curitiba PR - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at MAC/PR
1988 - Manaus AM - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1988 - Porto Alegre RS - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at Margs
1988 - Recife PE - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at Fundação Joaquim Nabuco
1988 - São Paulo SP - 19th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1988 - São Paulo SP - 80 Years of Japanese Immigration in Brazil, at Masp
1988 - São Paulo SP - Group show, at Skultura Galeria de Arte
1988 - São Paulo SP - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at MAB-Faap
1988 - São Paulo SP - Kaiatakusha - Pioneers of Japanese-Brazilian Art, at Caesar Park Hotel
1988 - São Paulo SP - Life and Art of the Japanese in Brazil, at Masp
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at MNBA
1989 - São Paulo SP - 20th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1991 - Recife PE - Group show, at Escritório de Arte Guilherme Eustáchio
1991 - São Paulo SP - From Chaos to Cosmos, at Skultura Galeria de Arte
1993 - São Paulo SP - Aviation and Art, at Espaço Cultural do Aeroporto de Congonhas
1993 - São Paulo SP - Portuguese-Japanese-Brazilian Exhibition, at MAB-FAAP
1993 - São Paulo SP - Works Illustrating the Literary Supplement: 1956 - 1967, at MAM/SP
1993 - São Paulo SP - Portugal-Japan: Navigated Seas, at MAB-FAAP
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século XX, at Fundação Bienal
1995 - Brasília DF - Seven Samurai of Brazilian Art, at LBV
1995 - Niigata (Japan) - Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, at The Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art
1995 - Tokushima (Japan) - Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, at Centro Cultural de Tokushima
1996 - Gifu (Japan) - Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, at The Museum of Fine Art Gifu
1996 - São Paulo SP - Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, at Masp
1996 - Tokyo (Japan) - Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, at Azabu Art Museum
1997 - Jacareí SP - Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, at Oficina de Artes Santa Helena
1997 - São Paulo SP - Diversity of Contemporary Brazilian Sculpture, at Avenida Paulista
1997 - São Paulo SP - Four Materials, at Skultura Galeria de Arte
1998 - Belo Horizonte MG - Japan-Brazil International Traveling Exhibition, at Fundação Clóvis Salgado. Palácio das Artes
1998 - Ipatinga MG - Japan-Brazil International Traveling Exhibition
1998 - São Paulo SP - Lines and Forms, at Jo Slaviero Galeria de Arte
1999 - Brasília DF - Japan-Brazil International Traveling Exhibition, at Ministério das Relações Exteriores
1999 - São Paulo SP - Japan-Brazil International Traveling Exhibition, at Masp
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Sculpture: From the Pinacoteca to the Jardim da Luz, at Pinacoteca do Estado
2000 - São Paulo SP - 29th Bunkyo Salon, at Sociedade Brasileira de Cultura Japonesa
2001 - Porto Alegre RS - Liba and Rubem Knijnik Collection: Brazilian Contemporary Art, at Margs
2001 - São Paulo SP - 4 Decades, at Nova André Galeria
2001 - São Paulo SP - Japanese-Brazilian Art: Moments, at Galeria Euroart Castelli
2002 - Porto Alegre RS - Drawings, Prints, Sculptures and Watercolors, at Garagem de Arte
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilianart Project, at Almacén Galeria de Arte
2004 - São Paulo SP - Gesture and Expression: Informal Abstraction in the JP Morgan Chase and MAM Collections, at MAM/SP
Source: Itaú Cultural
