The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography is delighted to announce the opening of an exhibition featuring the work of SUDA Issei, entitled "nagi no hira — fragments of calm". The work he has produced since the 1970s seems to provide a glimpse through the cracks in reality to a space that exists in a different dimension and has received international acclaim, being shown not only in Japan but also in Australia, New York, etc.

Born in the Kanda district of Tokyo in 1940, SUDA has used an unconventional viewpoint and outstanding technique to create a body of work from the 1960s onwards that offers the viewer a behind-the-scenes view of people's lives and the city. As one of the artists recently selected by the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography for priority collection, in this exhibition we will be able to show not only the works previously obtained for the collection, including "Fushi Kaden", "Monogusa Syui", and "Tokyo kei" (Tokyo View), but also early works, such as "Akai Hana" (Scarlet Bloom) and "Osorezan e" (To Osorezan), plus some of his latest works, celebrating his fifty years as a photographer.

SUDA's eye seems to travel between the ordinary and extraordinary, creating an atmosphere similar to that experienced in moments of 'calm' when the wind ceases to blow. This exhibition consists of an accumulation of numerous fragments of this calm, each captured within a single photograph. We hope that you will enjoy these landscapes of the past, the people and images of various customs passed down from the middle of the last century, all captured by SUDA Issei's unique vision, and preserved in minutely detailed gelatin silver prints.

*image (left)
Yugano, Shizuoka, from "Monogusa Syui", 1981
© Suda Issei
Courtesy of Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography