Suzuki Risaku Water Mirror (Signed)

Suzuki Risaku's "Water Mirror" is a collection of works that condenses the thoughts and sensibilities of an artist who has continually questioned the very act of "seeing." Suzuki sees the camera as "a device for capturing part of the subject," and photography as "pure perception through the camera." How can we return our vision, which has become more efficient through experience, to its primordial state? This question is brought to sharp focus by the motif of the surface of water.

Water mirrors—images reflected on the surface of the water blur the boundary between real and virtual, temporarily suspending the viewer's experience and knowledge. The trees by the lake and their shadows swaying on the water's surface both exist equally in the photograph, and there is no way to determine which is "real." What emerges is a state of pure perception, similar to the moment a child encounters the world when they look into a mirror for the first time.

This book includes a total of 46 works, including the "Water Mirror" series. The images, which combine precise depictions captured with a large-format camera with fluctuations and blurs, invite the viewer into the space between the concrete and the abstract. At the end of the book, art critic Yuri Mitsuda writes a text in both Japanese and English. This book will allow you to rediscover the possibilities of the medium of photography and the depth of the act of "seeing."

[Title] Water Mirror
[Publisher] Case Publishing
[Production] Japan Fine Art Photography Association
[Publication date] September 2017 (first edition)
[Number of pages] Unpaginated (112 pages)
[Size] Approx. 331*263*16mm, 1217g
[Format] Hardcover
[Language] Japanese and English
[Title Reading] Water Mirror
[Authors/Editors] Suzuki Risaku/Author, Mitsuda Yuri/Writer, Tanaka Yoshihisa/Design, Nakajima Yusuke/Editor, Okamoto Natsuyoshi/Editor, Taka Ishii Gallery/Cooperation
[Printing] Hakko Art/Printing, Printing Design/Bookbinding
[ISBN] 9784908526138
[Condition] Used, signed (silver pen on the cover) [7] Above average (slight stain on the top)
[Accessories] None
[Featured books]
[Related Exhibition] CASE TOKYO 2018

Risaku Suzuki

Born in Shingu City, Wakayama Prefecture in 1963.
Graduated from the Graduate School of Tokyo College of Photography in 1987.

He began working with photography in the late 1980s.
In 1998, he published his first photo book, "KUMANO," which focused on his hometown, Kumano.
His next work, PILES OF TIME (1999), was highly praised as an ambitious work that depicts the journey to a sacred site as a series of photographs reminiscent of a road movie, and won the 25th Kimura Ihei Photography Award in 2000.

Since then, while continuing to make Kumano his life's work, he has continued to create works centered around fundamental questions about the act of "seeing" itself, with themes such as Mont Sainte-Victoire in the south of France, Cézanne's studio, cherry blossoms, snow, and the surface of water. In 2006, he received the Higashikawa Domestic Artist Award, the Photographic Society of Japan Annual Award in 2008, and the Sagamihara Photography Award in 2015. In 2010, he formed the "Photographic Secession" group with photographers and critics of his generation.

His major photo books include "KUMANO" (Korinsha Publishing), "PILES OF TIME" (Korinsha Publishing), "Kumano Snow Cherry Blossoms" (Tankosha), "Between the Sea and the Mountains" (amanasalto), "SAKURA" and "White" (edition nord), "Atelier of Cézanne" (Nazraeli Press), "Water Mirror" (Case Publishing), and "Étude" (Super Lab). His works are held in the collections of museums both in Japan and abroad, including the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and ICP. He is a professor at the Department of Intermedia Art, Tokyo University of the Arts.

< Related Figures >

Risaku Suzuki
Large format camera