RISAKU SUZUKI – BEYOND THE REALM OF TIME

“Beyond the Realm of Time” is a series comprising photographs of the Oto festival and Nachi Falls of the Kumano region. The Oto festival is held annually on the night of February 6 at Kamikura Shrine. It is the oldest fire festival in Japan. The Nachi Falls originally comprises 48 falls in the Nachi Mountains, which is considered a sacred place by nature worshippers. In this series, Suzuki has reorganized the photographs, which he shot using a 6×7 camera between 1995 and 2004, in sequence. He has said in regards to this series, “The reason I dared to photograph subjects like fire or light, which came out overexposed, was that I wanted to make a work containing the white color of the printing paper which resulted from the brightness of the subjects over the latitude of the film. A photograph cannot be called a photograph without an “image,” or the subject in it. That is, the white printing paper is just a “matiere” which is never considered as a photograph. l wished to approach the boundary between the photograph and the white printing paper.” The exhibition at &co119 will include five works from the “Beyond the Realm of Time” as well as one video work.