Ryo Suzuki 

Untitled, (Trying to Catch the Form)#03 

Untitled, (Trying to Catch the Form)#03

About the artist

How can one now photograph a modern architectural icon like the Chapel in Ronchamp?
 Ryo Suzuki displays a renewed, poetic and original vision of architecture by the great masters, from Le Corbusier to Peter Zumthor. The photographic image constitutes a formal echo to the essence of the architects’ work and bears witness to the photographer’s deeply intuitive knowledge of their creations.

Interview

How was the Listening to Architecture project born?
I’m interested in space as a whole, and particularly in today’s multifarious relations between “space and time” and “nature and humans”. This work offers a possible answer to the question of the relationship between architecture and human.

You have photographed the works of Le Corbusier and Peter Zumthor: what were your criteria in selecting these architectures?

Among the many architectural works I visited, I chose those offering the richest spatial experience. These architectures also share a poetic side beyond their functional character.
Another parameter is my taste for old objects, which I collect. I particularly like things that have been around for a long time and are designed to last. These objects often exude formal, material, aesthetic and conceptual power.

Your photographs often feature a kind of echo, as if the location was breathing in the image. Do you decide upon the image on the spot, when shooting, or do you conceptualize it beforehand? Do you already know you are going to stop on Scarpa’s single staircase, or the grass around Peter Zumthor, or is this revealed by your wanderings?
Before I visit architecture, I research the concept. When shooting, there are plenty of aspects that come into play and influence me, like the specific conditions of time and space at a given moment, the positioning of the body, the knowledge you have of the object, the history of photography, technique and so on. Every time, all of these elements are reflected in my work. I try as much as possible to immerse myself into the moment’s uniqueness, the element of chance, and I only shoot once I know I can capture the unexpected.
This also means that there are a number of photographs in Listening to Architecture where no architecture is to be seen, but I think they actually illustrate situations created by the architecture.

You use black and white, sometimes pushing the whites to dazzling extremes and blurring the lines. What does the absence of detail reveal? How do you approach the light when working with the substance of architecture?
We see reality through different filters; knowledge and photography are not always the most appropriate media to objectively represent reality. In my work, I am not trying to offer an explicit description of architecture, but exploring the different relationship modes between space and humans. This is why I have chosen black & white negative film to abstract architecture and represent it as a space that appears based on how you experience it.

Limited edition, numbered and signed. 


Selected shows and awards

Tokyo Design Week, Tokyo, 2015
Listening To Architecture, Raum1f, Tokyo, 2013
Cerebral Garden, Paris, 2013
Listening To Architecture, Galerie Catherine&Andre Hug, Paris, 2012
Seoul International Photography Festival, Seoul, 2009
My Forest In Your Forest, Les Salaisons, Romainville, 2008
One Forest, Galerie Catherine&Andre Hug, Paris, 2007
Knot, Hiromi Yoshii Gallery, Tokyo, 2006
Matrix Of The Contemporary Photography, Site-Graphics, Kawasaki City Museum, Kanagawa, 2005
Art Paris, Paris, 2005
Fiac, Paris, 2005
Group Exhibition, Hiromi Yoshii Gallery, Tokyo, 2005
Art Paris, Paris, 2004
Jeune Creation, Grande Halle De La Villette, Paris, 2004
Festival Voies Off (Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie à Arles), Arles, 2003
Drawing Constellations, Gallery Light Works, Yokohama, 2002
Canon New Cosmos Of Photography 2001, Galley Raku, Kyoto, 2001
Canon New Cosmos Of Photography 2000, Aoyama Moda-Politica, Tokyo, 2000

Selected publications

Listening To Architecture, Plancton, 2012

Featured links

Details

& order

Ryo Suzuki 
Untitled, (Trying to Catch the Form)#03

2010

Technical information

Pigment print on Hahnemühle Ultrasmooth paper - limited edition, numbered and signed certificate.

Dimensions

30 x 42,5 cm, Edition of 50 250.00 €




By the same artist

Ryo Suzuki


By the same curator

NEW JPN GEN with Marc Feustel