Archaic Future
2023
Moerenuma Park, Sapporo
Moerenuma Park, Sapporo, is thrilled to announce the solo exhibition, "ARCHAIC FUTURE," by Japanese artist Yuya Suzuki. This landmark event marks the 20th anniversary of the Glass Pyramid's inauguration at the park.
Yuya Suzuki creates " archegraphs " (a term coined by Suzuki), seeking universal shapes, images, and symbolic systems beyond cultural boundaries and within the potential realms of the world. "Forms" that unconsciously continue to be recognized in urban landscapes, such as randomly placed trash on the streets, torn posters, graffiti-covered walls, and architectural details. These non-functional elements existing in public spaces are abstracted through an extensive drawing process and then transformed into three-dimensional artworks, videos, lightboxes, and more, presenting them in new compositions with soft colors and shapes.
In this exhibition, he will unveil new works inspired by the pieces left behind by sculptor Isamu Noguchi, who was involved in the design of Moerenuma Park. Noguchi traveled to various lands worldwide, discovering values that connect from ancient ruins and traditional artifacts to the future, which he then reflected in his creations. Drawing from the universality of "forms" found in Noguchi's works, Suzuki's new installation pieces explore the gap between the past and the future, offering a glimpse of the expanding possibilities of the future, transcending eras and cultures. These artworks are reminiscent of unearthed relics from ancient times and, at the same time, resemble the new devices of the future that we will eventually encounter. We invite you to witness Suzuki's visionary installation pieces that pursue the enduring essence of "forms" across time and culture.
Exhibition Document ( PDF / EN + JP )
Through my visits to archaeological museums across Europe and ancient cities in Italy—such as Pompeii and Ostia Antica—I often felt that within ancient forms lies an archetype of shapes that still resonates in the present. I began to imagine that such archetypes might also extend into an imagined future. Focusing on these timeless formal languages, I overlap elements of different temporalities—ancient, contemporary, and future—to materialize an archaeological space of an imagined future (Archaic Future) through the form of installation.
Drawing references from shapes discovered in archaeological museums, as well as abstracted forms found through the observation of contemporary urban environments, I constructed a multilayered spatial work that embodies the timeline connecting antiquity, the present, and the future—through sculptural pieces, animations using characters from ancient to modern scripts, and videos composed of assemblages of excavated fragments.
