Takeshi Sumi of LibroArte

2024-01-31

写真は「記録」

「記録」は別の言い方をすれば「時を固定する」ということになる。
私たちは通常、そこに介入することはできない。

しかし私はあえて「固定された記録」である写真に現在から、
それ自体にアプローチしたいと考えた。
そこには命が「輪廻」するという仏教の思想や、地震や台風、戦争で
物質的な継続が困難な日本という場所で育ったことが
バックグラウンドにあるのかもしれない。
空気を食べ、空を泳ぎ、泡のように消えて行く存在である人間。
そんなに儚い人間の存在が私は好きだ。だからそこに手を伸ばす。

私の写真の光り輝く「空白」。
輝く部分はそこに何が存在しているのか分からなくする。
しかし生きていれば「何か」がそこには存在している。
そしてその「何か」はそれぞれの見る人の中に回答があってもいいように思う。

例えば顔の部分。
我々はその輝く部分にどういった顔があったのか自由に想像を働かせる事ができる。
言い換えれば写真の輝く部分は「記録」から自由になる。
「今の」私がそこに入り込むことができる。

過去にあった事は変えることはできない。
しかしその過去の映った世界は今在る存在の手に委ねたい。

その為に私は作品をつくりつづけていきたい。


Seeing the light, feeling the light―Takeshi Sumi's photographs
Kotaro Iizawa(photography critic)


It is well known that the term “photography” is a compound word consisting of “photo” and “graph”, which means to draw by light.But because Japanese has adapted the word shashin, which literally means “reflecting the truth”, as the equivalent of “photography”, we tend to forget the original concept of photography, a trace of light.What is more, when we look at a photograph, we usually see what it shows and that’s it. And it becomes even more difficult to think that the image is created by light.It is just not so easy for us to see or to fell the light itself directly.

Takeshi Sumi has recently been engaged in a project in which he has adopted a unique way. He makes small holes in his prints with a pin, and then he takes a picture of them, holding them up to the sun. It can be said to be a way of unveiling the “hidden light” from his photograph.This idea first appreaed in his works “Hikari (Light)”, which received an honorable mention in New Cosmos of Photography in 2010. Sumi developed this project further, and exhibited it at his solo show held in Port Gallery T (Osaka) in 2011.

It should be noted that the prints Sumi used for the work were copies of his own family photographs.His grandfather, passed away about 15 years ago, used to work in Kure city in Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, he witnessed the atomic bombing from where was only 20km away from the ground zero.Needless to say, a sharp flash must have penetrated all the things around the area at the moment of the explosion, burning up and destructing everything.
Sumi pricks myriads of holes in a photograph of his grandfather as a young man so as to let in the sunshine through them.
This seems to be a ritual to experience for ourself the flash of the August 6 again.
Light illuminates all living things in this world and is essential for us to maintain our own lives.However, in contrast to this positive role, light could show a cruelty and violence as revealed in the flash of the atomic bomb.In the series of “Hikari”, we can see this duality.From the beams of light coming through the holes in his prints, we sometimes get a tender and soft impression, and at other times sharp and violent one.

In the series titled “Sora ni oyogu (Fly in the sky)”, which was exhibited at Port Gallery T in 2012, this ambivalence seems to grow stronger.
In this series, Sumi created his work using not only his family photographs but also the snapshots taken in various places in Tokyo. In either case, he again pricked many holes in the photographs.
It appeared to me as a preferable change.
If he is content with just creating his works using his family photographs, he will not be able to go beyond the superficial level of “seeing the light” and “feeling the light”.
The act of sticking a pin into unidentified faces or bodies on his photographs taken on streets requires Sumi to prepare himself to bear the pain of guilt over doing it.
And, the viewer may also perceive the beams of light through the holes he pricked on his photographs, expecting the feeling pain and guilt.
Of course, Sumi is well conscious of it.
We can grasp his intention from the artist statement he wrote for his own exhibition “Sora ni oyogu”. In it, he wrote as follows: The blank space created by light. Because photograph is the thing “fixes” the flow of time, I want the light to break it. To see, to imagine. Extend your limbs, and dive into the world that extends beyond the blanks on my photographs.

To understand the light through the holes on his photographs as the “blanks” with great possibilities, and to dive into there ---- this is the attitude Sumi wants in the viewer.

He sure will continue to experiment.And we are looking forward to seeing what he wil gain from such experiments.

1981　京都出身
明治大学文学部文学科ドイツ文学専攻卒業
明治大学雄弁部に所属

多摩美術大学美術学部情報デザイン学科情報芸術コース卒業
B-lab（久保田晃弘教授、三上晴子教授）に所属

[展示]
2007　『七人の○○展』ギャラリーモンド/東京
2008　 第３０回写真『ひとつぼ展』ガーディアンガーデン/東京
2009　２００９年度『第32回写真新世紀展』東京都写真美術館/東京
2010　『「あれから20 年、これから20 年」未来に届くアート展』ガーデァイアンガーデン/東京
　　　 ２０１０年度『第33回写真新世紀展』東京都写真美術館/東京
　　　 個展『メテオ』＠企画ギャラリー『明るい部屋』/東京
2011 個展『光』＠Port Gallery T/大阪
　　 『東京画』＠Gallery 21/東京
個展『光の空白』＠ブランクラス/横浜
2012 『存在』in nagune/歌舞伎町・東京
　　　 『NEW WAVE OF JAPANESE PHOTOGRARHY』/スペイン
　　　 『TOKYO-GA meets NYPH2012』in 111Front Street/ニューヨーク
[受賞]
2008 第３０回写真『ひとつぼ展』入選
2009 ２００９年度『写真新世紀』佳作（飯沢耕太郎氏選）
2010 ２０１０年度『写真新世紀』佳作（大森 克己氏選）


Born in Kyoto in 1981

Education
Bachelor of Art 'Tama Art University ' ,Tokyo 2010
Bachelor of Literature'meiji University',Tokyo 2004

■Solo Shows
2012 Look at the sky,Overland Gallery,Tokyo
2012 Flying in the Sky, Port Gallery T,Osaka
2011 Light is blank, Blanclass,Yokohama
2011 hikari（English meaning:Light）,Port Gallery T,Osaka
2010 Meteorite,Gallery Akaruiheya（English meaning:Bright room）,Tokyo

■Selected Group Shows/art fair
2012 Winter Group Show ,Satoshi Koyama Gallery
2012 no found photo fair,66 RUE DE TURENNE 75003 PARIS
2012 TOKYO PHOTO 2012,Tokyo Midtown Hall, Roppongi
2012 Tokyo-Ga meets NYPH2012,111 Front Street,NY
2011 Tokyo-Ga（東京画）,Gallery 21,Tokyo
2010 Exhibition New Cosmos of Photography, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum ofPhotography
2009 Exhibition New Cosmos of Photography, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
2008 30th Hitotubo Exhibition,Ginza Guardian Garden,Tokyo

■Publication
2012 『Fly in the sky』Libro Arte

■Grants
2010 Selected: New Cosmos of Photography
2009 Selected: New Cosmos of Photography
2008 Selected:30th Hitotubo

Takeshi Sumi HP

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