Ontology of Forms
Mizuki Endo (Independent Curator)
When I view art by SUZUKI Hiraku, I sense how he yearns for the meaningfulness of stripping away all meaning,
and the inevitability of removing all that is inevitable, in order to be pure to the fact that his art is a negative of thatwhich is so brutally prescribed by modern society, particularly the information society. At the same time, he brings
together materials, as if by coincidence, but makes careful preparations to record the decisive moment of theirencounter. And, after all that, when the form that finally appears is void of energy, instead of bemoaning thatfact, he asserts that it is simply reality as a negative. What I sense is the decisiveness of that audacious judgment.
Simply put, it is like this. Rather than using unclear areas that are the source of meaning that would allow criticism
with regard to the unconscious being absurd, confused, and at the edge of reason, by interpreting that itself as reality
as a negative, SUZUKI Hiraku turns reality into the surreal as a positive. To be more specific, it is like a dream inwhich actual events that occurred while you were awake are automatically recorded as soon as you fall asleep sothat they are not forgotten, and the content recorded in that dream being automatically developed like film.
Therefore, rather than being a work of art, it comes from further back: a drawing or photo made as a recording. At
this point, the things assumed to be extensions of our humanity, such as hands, pens, and white paper, can nolonger be used. Because thats the opposite approach. Suzuki thinks of the non-human subject as being themedium, as a negative, for the purpose of automatically recording reality in dreams.
Perhaps I got ahead of myself. Firstly, lets focus on the form that we can see. Look at the form. People
think about what it is, but one must admit immediately that it is nothing. (The fastest way to do this might be tocheck out the artists gorgeous book GENGA.) Next, you might attempt to grasp the spatial relationships insideand outside, or front and back, or measurements of size. Because through those relationships a three-dimensional
order is attained. But this approach will probably not go very well, either. Inside and outside, and front and back canbe reversed. Even size does not give a fix, because it can expand or contract. Not knowing what else to do, you
might borrow the power of genre, introduce an epistemological framework, and try to understand the modality fromthere. Painting, drawing, photography, collage, sculpture, relief, graffiti, prints, videos, etc., etc. This approach willprobably not go very well, either. Using genre-based standards of value judgment would seem to reduce it to thelevel of no longer having any value at all. But looking at it, you the viewer can tell intuitively that it is not void ofvalue. In the end, you may be tempted to escape to the easy narrative of seeing it as formative art based on somekind of profound thought. But that would be wrong. Thats not the case, either. Because you cannot understandSUZUKI Hirakus art while still holding onto your form. You must enter a dream.
However, wishing to reach inside a dream while knowing that you wont be able to is escapist and decadent.
SUZUKI Hiraku wouldnt do something so uncouth. He boldly asserts that the dream is reality, and that this is arecord of reality. Struck by the record, you can live as though dead to our surreal world.
Hurray! Everything is positive.
Which is to say that what SUZUKI Hiraku does, trying to make you sit up and take notice, is simply audacious anddecisive. It is only its transparent form that is floating in the air.
September 2015
an essay contributed to the solo exhibition GENZO
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