Christophe Guye Galerie is thrilled to announce Risaku Suzuki's (*1963, Japan) fourth solo exhibition 'Light of Spring' at the gallery. The exhibition shows works from three different series – 'White', 'Sakura' and 'Water Mirror' – and explores the crucial period of the year when the quiet and monotony of winter gives way to the burgeoning of spring and later to the lushness of summer. The photographic subjects range from snowy, blurred trees to blurry budding cherry blossoms and water surfaces overgrown with greenery. But rather than the awakening of life, the focus lies on the fragmentary passage and flow of time, on the crystallization of single moments.
‘When you use the words ‘winter’ and ‘spring’, the two seasons are as seen as different things, entities that can be separated. However, the seasons are continually changing, and time moves onwards without interruption. What you can capture with photography is the state of the world at the instant you released the shutter, and the image itself does not tell us much. However, when these are arranged in sequence, they begin to connect with each other, and a space or interval begins to emerge between them. […] Photographers are generally expected to show how they interpreted the scene or what meaning they found in the subject, but for me, photography is a response to the world I encountered, and my aim is for the captured scene to be remembered anew by the viewer. I do not look ‘to take photographs’. First comes the surprise and joy of encounter in what I see, and then there is the taking of the photograph. The subject of my works is to express the purity of the camera lens.’ ― from Risaku Suzuki’s foreword in his book ‘Winter to Spring’
The works on view condense everything that makes Suzuki's photography so captivating: his profound reflections on the subject of photography itself and his constant questioning of what it means to ‘look’.
Risaku Suzuki, born in 1963 in Shingu City, Wakayama, began using photography as medium for his creative output after graduating from Tokyo College of Photography in 1987. Today he is one of Japan's most renowned photographers. Suzuki has exhibited worldwide and received numerous awards, including the Kimura Ihei Award, the most prestigious award in the field of photography in Japan. His works are collected by museums such as the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the San Francisco MoMA, the Fondazione Casa di Risparimo di Modena, Italy, the bank Lombard Odier Zurich, Switzerland, and the International Center of Photography, NYC.
