Form-Philia

“Objects always have form. Even with a wealth of visual experience, it’s difficult to imagine a thing without knowledge of its form. For me, photography is a way of cutting out a part of the visible world and giving it a new form and meaning. To look at a photographic image, therefore, is to search for meaning in new form.”―Takashi Suzuki

“Form-Philia” is a neologism combining “form” and “philia” ; meaning a strong feeling, love, or unusual desire for something. The current exhibition shows three series include Suzuki’s best-known works BAU, previous series of ARCA and newest series of Fictum. This exhibition will provide an overview of Suzuki’s works, which have used the photographic medium to interrogate what it means to look at photographs.

The ambitious BAU series, which was acclaimed at the Dutch photography fair “Unseen” last year, comprises images capturing various forms made by combining colorful sponges. By using a black background, Suzuki highlights the “construction” and “structure” (both are definitions of bau) of these forms, which in their proliferation and various patterns, divorces sponges from their conventional meaning. For the current exhibition, in order to best suited to the IMA gallery space, works will be selected and installed from the entire works of 500.

The images in Suzuki’s series ARCA capture the phenomenon of shadows to see from the front. To photographed with a large format camera and printed large, the images lose their specific contours and sizes, as well as their meaning as shadows, those become a new structure. In his newest series Fictum, Suzuki has montaged photographs of the chaotic clutter of Japanese cities to create a new landscape.

By using the photographic medium and perspective, he gives new meaning and value to everyday forms such as houses, shadows, and sponges. We hope you’ll take this opportunity to follow the trajectory of Suzuki’s thoughts.