Project

”Hiraku Suzuki: Excavation Today“ @The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma
”The Writing of Meteors (S/L #01)" lava stone (bolted) , silver ink, earth, acrylic on canvas, 1750 x 1750 x 50mm Photo by Chen Hsin Wei © Hiraku Suzuki Studio

  • ”Hiraku Suzuki: Excavation Today“ @The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma

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”Hiraku Suzuki: Excavation Today“ @The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma

Artist

September 16 (Sat) -December 19 (Tue) , 2023

Focusing on the interconnection between drawing and writing or picture and language, Hiraku Suzuki's practice encompasses a large variety of media, including two-dimensional works, installations, murals, video, performance, and sculpture. His art explores the potentiality of drawing in an expanded notion through the act of excavating the lines in time and space. The largest-ever solo exhibition of his work will be held at the Museum of Modern Art, Gunma as a present position of his work. We invite you to view this exhibition with newly created installation as a innovated starting point for artist, having his activities both in Japan and abroad.

(contact for information of the sales of the artwork, tsuboi@artfront.co.jp

Date September 16 (Sat) -December 19 (Tue) , 2023
Hours 9h30 -17h (admission through 16h30)
closed Monday open on 9/18, 10/9, 11/27, 12/11, 12/18  9/19(Tue)、10/10(Tue),11/13(Mon)-23(Thu),12/4(Mon)-8(Fri)、12/14(Thu)
(from the flyer of the exhibition) For Hiraku Suzuki, the line is a medium that connects words and pictures, this side and that side, self and others, and promotes mutual penetration. The drawing is an act of drawing. Drawing, the act of drawing lines, is an excavation of the (invisible) lines that exist throughout the universe, and if lines are taken as hollow passages, like tunnels, or tubes, they can be used as a means of communication. If we consider lines as hollow passages or tubes like tunnels, we can transcend the dichotomies of human beings and nature, subject and object, and create a world that is more than just a tunnel. If we see the line as a hollow passage like a tunnel or a tube, it becomes a means to unite with the world or the universe, transcending dichotomies such as human and nature, subject and object.
This exhibition, largest solo exhibition to date will feature a major-scale installation of 40 works from his latest series, ”The Writing of Meteors" (2023), as well as a selection of his recent series, "Constellation" (2018-2021) and "Interexcavation" (2019), and murals to be produced on-site for this exhibition.

The exhibition venue is the museum's contemporary art building (completed in 1997) designed by Arata Isozaki (1931-2022), an architect who sadly passed away at the end of last year. Isozaki conceived of the building as a cavity through which works of art would pass. As if to echo this idea, Suzuki has been traveling from exhibition room to exhibition room in search of the origins and future of drawing and writing.
Suzuki's work is a series of lines from the exhibition room to the gallery, from the cave where the oldest wall paintings of mankind were left behind to outer space, where creation and annihilation are repeated beyond human knowledge. Suzuki Hiraku finds the line every day as an excavation, a moment when the past and the present intersect, and through the act of drawing and writing, he expands the concept of drawing and creates a new work of art.

He continues to expand the concept of drawing and renew the possibilities of expression in the modern age. Please come and experience the installation.


”The Writing of Meteors (S/M #15)" lava stone (bolted) , silver ink, earth, acrylic on canvas, 1170 x 1170 x 50mm Photo by Chen Hsin Wei © Hiraku Suzuki Studio

"Interexcavation #15" 2019 silver ink, earth, acrylic and pigments on canvas 1940 x 1620 x 30mm


Wandering in “Drawing Tube” (installation view of the exhibition)


Photos as below are by Ooki Jingu © Hiraku Suzuki Studio

First, visitors are greeted by a wall painting created especially for this exhibition. Based on the artist's impressions of the Iwajuku site, which dates back to the Paleolithic Era, the silver ink drawing, with its silver lines intersecting with two pieces of lava stones, plays a prelude to tens of thousands of years into the future, just like an ancient mural painting.

“Impressions of Iwajuku Site” 2023 lava stone (bolted) and silver ink on the wall 3150 x 8650 x 90mm

On the walls of Room 4 are 20 works from the "Interexcavation" series. The "ground" of each work is made of red iron oxide color reminiscent of cave wall paintings, including works from museums and private collections. In the center of the exhibition room, pairs of "Constellation" paintings stand back-to-back. Painted with reflective silver ink on ink-and-earth-soaked canvas, they look different from each other depending on the angle of view, and in the dark lighting, one can feel the layering of time. Spanning 862 cm in width, "Constellation #23" is a work presented in his solo exhibition at Art Front Gallery, "Hiraku Suzuki - Traffic" (2018, private collection at present), and is also located at an important place of spatial intersection in this museum exhibition.

“Interexcavation”2019 silver ink, acrylic and pigment on canvas
“Constellation” 2018-21 silver ink, earth, acrylic and sumi ink on canvas

“Constellation #23” 2018 silver ink, acrylic and pigment on canvas
2640 x 8620mm

Next, in the high-ceilinged Room 5, the first thing that catches the eye is a symbol on the front wall reminiscent of a burial mound and a wire installed overhead, with a planet-like stones penetrating the wire. The artist was inspired by the Kannonyama burial mound (late 6th century) near the museum, where he was strongly impressed by the keyhole-like shape opened to the sky and the hole made of stones.

“Impressions of Kannonyama Kofun” 2023 lava stone, wire, silver ink on the wall

The walls on both sides are composed of a series of " The Writing of Meteors" in three sizes, large, medium, and small, made of lava stones bolted together and drawn with silver ink. These works have a breadth and depth that only Suzuki, who has been focusing on the human activity of drawing, could have created, and invite the viewer to experience as if the planets are communicating with each other, opening to the outer space.

“The Writing of Meteors” 2023 lava stone (bolted) silver ink, earth and acrylic on canvas

Drawings and the branches used to create them are displayed in a long, narrow, cavernous space that leads to the permanent collection. A work on paper produced by a branch drawing workshop held this summer at the Toride Campus of Tokyo University of the Arts guides the viewer's gaze, culminating in a video recording of the work.

Participants of Workshop initiated by Hiraku Suzuki at Toride Canvas of Tokyo University of the Arts “The Marker of Nature” 2023 tree branched, silver ink on paper

Even though the mediums are diverse, each work gives the strong impression of being organically connected as part of a single drawing created by Suzuki. We invite you to experience the message at the exhibition site.





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