Since his video installation “Perspective of the Globe Jungle” which was broadcast in NHK “Digital Stadium” in 2001 won the award of excellence, Yasuhiro Suzuki has been playing an active part in various fields including exhibition and design. “Blinking Leaves” presented in 2003, in which leaf-shaped pieces of paper with the image of an open eye and a closed eye on the back blown upwards and whirled downwards by the wind look like blinking eyes, enjoyed great popularity at not only museums but also many public spaces. In 2009, “Constellation of Departure” presented in the project “Air Harbor” at Haneda Airport for which he worked as art director won a good design award. At Setouchi Triennale in 2010, his “Ship of the Zipper” in which the wake from a motorboat is likened to a giant zip attracted attention. At an exhibition held next year at Hamamatsu Municipal Museum of Art, he introduced a project called “Flip Book Manga Shopping Streets” at the shopping arcade and the municipal office. As the place of his activities is not limited to art museums, he is intentionally working for site-specific public spaces.

This time, “Neighborhood Globe” is a themed exhibition composed of Yasuhiro Suzuki’s most important works and his new pieces. In addition, the project “Flip Book Manga Shopping Streets in Mito” is conducted to represent the streets of Mito in a new perspective. 

“Neighborhood Globe” is another name for his “Perspective of the Globe Jungle,” one of the works representing him, and it also indicates his basic philosophy of production: the idea of being a part of the earth (the bigger whole) while remaining close to our neighborhood.

He creates stylish works with his acute sensitivity and in a new context, dealing with a natural phenomenon or what is likely to be overlooked in our daily life. He shows us how familiar and surprising the earth can be, whose existence we are seldom conscious of, although it is so close to us.

*image (left)
Yasuhiro Suzuki
Balloon Being, 2014
courtesy of the artist