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HISAO SUZUKI, THE PHOTOGRAPHER
Hisao Suzuki has lived in Barcelona for over 20 years.
Born in 1957 in Yamagata, a northern province in Japan, he
finished his academic studies in the Tokyo College of Photography (Tokyo Shashin
Gakko). He then worked in the studio of the photographer Tohru Minowa,
specializing in gastronomy.
After a few years practicing and perfecting his work in this
studio, he went to Barcelona in 1982 in order to observe the works of
Gaudí.
His trip to Barcelona was no accident. His interest in the
Catalan architect was triggered by an exhibition of his works that had been
organized by the prestigious photographer Eiko Hosoe in the Yokohama City
Hall in 1978.
It was during this period that Hisao Suzuki began to
photograph architecture in Barcelona, centering on the works of Gaudí.
This introduction into the fascinating world of modernist
architecture – and especially the spaces created by Gaudí – led him in 1985
to leap into the equally fascinating world of contemporary architecture.
His participation began with a photographic record of the
designs and the construction of the Palau Sant Jordi, the Barcelona Olympic
sports stadium created by the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki.
One year later his collaboration with the architectural
journal “El Croquis” began, and he soon became their principal
photographer. “El Croquis” has since become an architectural journal of
immense international prestige.
A professional must always feel challenged. In Suzuki’s case, the impulse
he received from Eiko Hosoe’s vision of Gaudí led him towards specializing
in the photography of ‘space’ as defined by architecture.
Photography is based on reality, on concrete facts, on the
existence of a model, and it is this that perhaps differentiates it from
other arts. But when it is a question of ‘space’, where reality has three
dimensions, the photographer’s interpretation becomes complicated and
crucial, if only because the photographer’s ultimate realization will be in
two dimensions.
A photographer may take one of two stances: either
demonstrate a work within its reality and its environment, or demonstrate
the image of the work that the photographer himself has created. In
Suzuki’s case the former is true, for his work is a true testimony and
documentation of reality.
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