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Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage will be participating in the Personal Structures exhibition (Venice, Italy), which will be held concurrently with the Venice Biennale. From May 9, 2026, art prints from Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure will be on display at Palazzo Bembo, which overlooks the Rialto Bridge.
In 2025, at the Minnesota Street Project (San Francisco, USA) we presented newly created lithographs by Hirohiko Araki, alongside his lenticular works that reveal three-dimensional images when viewed with both eyes, in their first worldwide showing. The works were then featured in a limited-time exhibition at Shiroshoin of Higashi Hongan-ji Temple in Kyoto, a building designated as an Important Cultural Property. They are currently being shown at Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage Tokyo Gallery (Azabudai Hills, Tokyo).
The exhibit in Venice will showcase not only these lithographs and lenticular works, but also color prints created using archival inkjet printing, as well as monochrome works produced on a flatbed letterpress.
Launched in 2011 and organized by the European Cultural Centre (ECC), the Personal Structures exhibition is dedicated to showcasing and honoring diverse forms of artistic expression that transcend ideology, politics, and geographic boundaries. The exhibition’s theme for 2026 is “Confluences.” The word refers to points where canals meet, where ideas cross paths, and where people connect with one another. Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage will participate in this special exhibition together with B-OWND Gallery, which showcases Japanese crafts through new approaches.
Photo by Matteo Losurdo
Palazzo Bembo, which will serve as the venue, is a historic structure built in the 14th century. It is known as the birthplace of Pietro Bembo, a Renaissance-era cultural figure. The exhibition will be held in a room with a stone-paved floor, featuring a mosaic of the Bembo family crest. The palace is located along a canal, and through the windows, visitors can look down on the Rialto Bridge.
Hirohiko Araki holds a deep admiration for Italy, which he chose as the setting for Part 5 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. In the story, Giorno Giovanna and Rohan Kishibe visit Venice, and the Rialto Bridge is where Joseph Joestar and Caesar Zeppeli encounter Lisa Lisa.
The exhibits transcend time and space, bridging reality and fiction by blurring the lines between art and manga, craft and manga, and real and imagined landscapes.
In 1980, Araki received the runner-up prize at the 20th Tezuka Award for his debut work Poker Under Arms, which was published in Weekly Shonen Jump. In 1986, he started the series JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in the same magazine. Cumulative circulation of the series has surpassed 120 million copies. As of 2025, he is currently serializing The JOJOLands in the monthly magazine Ultra Jump.
In 2009, he participated in an exhibition at the Louvre Museum, where Rohan Kishibe Goes to the Louvre (Rohan au Louvre) was unveiled. In 2013, collaborative works he created with Gucci were showcased worldwide in the fashion brand’s directly operated stores. In 2018, the Hirohiko Araki JoJo Exhibition: Ripples of Adventure was held in the National Art Center, Tokyo. This was the first time that a solo exhibition of an active manga artist has been held at a national art museum.
