Hiraku Suzuki: The Writing of Meteors

Each Modern is pleased to present for the first time in Taiwan, an exhibition of Japanese artist Hiraku Suzuki The Writing of Meteors. The exhibition will present new works on paper and canvas, installation, video, and photographs to present the infinity of the artist's expansion from lines. Before lines form the essentials of civilization, such as language and art, they remain in the state of connection from point to point through physical movement - that is, not only two-dimensional but the state of motion of space and time - which is the critical concept of Suzuki’s oeuvre. Suzuki rediscovers lines from archaeology and astronomy, as well as his interest in the fluidity between the visual and the textual, and then obtains clues of form through observations of the city scene. He integrates all into his unique method of drawing which conclusively points to modernism and futurism. Bacteria Sign, one of his famous early series from 2000, is comprised of canvases of soil. Suzuki buries dead leaves and gradually excavates the "line drawings" through revealing the veins. Bacteria Sign resonates drawing, archaeology, life cycle, the genesis of civilization, and other narratives. Soil of the sedimentary ground rebounds into an innocent imagination of the universe; a metaphorical, wonderful work. 　 Continuing his focus on the traces of life, GENGA has been Suzuki’s long-term project of depicting fragments of everyday shapes, collecting unknown marks, and finally, sorting and archiving. The title, GENGA, refers to a word play between “GENGO” (language) and “GINGA” (galaxy), with “GENGA” also meaning primal or original picture. The video GENGA #001 - #1000 (video), developed fromGENGA, further reverses images and jumps off physical forms, emphasizing the movement and beauty of lines through the changing of light itself. GENZO (photo), another work related to GENGA, began with Suzuki taking black paper and silver spray into a completely dark tunnel to draw blindly. The artist is not exploring to find a form, but reconstructing the photographic space by drawing; the title, GENZO, comes from the Japanese term for photographic development, but also means “phantom” and “original statue”. 　 Began in 2016, Suzuki’s experimental depiction of lines finally merged into Constellation. Tomoko Yabumae, curator of The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, mentioned in her article, “ It may follow logically that Suzuki’s work now emphasizes the concept of space. His most recent work shows what appear as galactic systems, laid out on huge surfaces. He defines his act of drawing as creating a tube between things, with the movement through it, bringing the notion of ‘transport’ to the fore. Accumulated lines discover orders through their mutual relationships, and all on their own determine their shapes and expanses of space.” 　 For Suzuki, lines are more than depictions of feelings and opinions through movements of the hands. The radical idea of his drawing is not limited to the possibility of a pen and paper, but of the media, form, and meaning, transcending another "premonition of some greater whole”, that is more striking and complex. The exhibition title The Writing of Meteors comes from French critic Roger Cailois’ L’ecriture de Pierres. For Suzuki, the symbols and lines that are created by these minimalist materials connect to time and space in the universe. Interpreting the changes and constants of the universe’s structure in both macro and micro, Suzuki is writing the universe. 　 Born in 1978 in Miyagi, Japan, Suzuki’s work has been the subject of numerous museum exhibitions: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; Mori Museum, Tokyo; MOCA YinChun, YinChun, ; Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris, Paris; Daiwa Anglo Japanese Foundation, London and etc.