Artists

Naoki Sutter-Shudo

Press release

— Art is always related to notions of time and space. In his essay on Laocoon, Lessing asserts that sculpture has to do with the expansion of bodies in a given space, whilst poetry/literature is concerned with actions unfolding in time. Art of time Versus art of Space. The passing of time Versus time frozen. Mouvement Versus Stillness.
Lessing says something very beautiful: that the distress at the sight of pain on Laocoon’s face is transformed into pity through beauty. That’s kind of what the sublime is about.
But the question of space and time is summed up in a somewhat too confrontational way in his view… Especially since Laocoon, to take an example of a sculptural masterpiece, is… How to put it? This sculpture is what it is because time has taken parts away from it. This sculpture is what it is because time has removed parts of it. It’s basically the thesis of Marguerite Yourcenar in her book, Le Temps, ce grand sculpteur. This is truly fascinating : how time can improve or transform a piece of art. Especially sculpture, which is truly something physical, something that occupies space and takes up room.
But it also exists in time.
All the materials that make it up will register the time that goes by.
Then there’s also all the time spent making these sculptures, with the idea that for them to withstand time they need time to be born - an important time of gestation.

— How does that show up in your work? Do you set yourself deliberate constraints?
These are sometimes laborious steps, layers and layers of primer, materials that often are a little old, a little toxic, that we don’t use much any more, but this way they hold up better.
In concrete terms, to get the finish I want, I often have to do eight, nine coats, and consider time for sanding, drying and adjustment. These contraints I imposed on myself are not rational. Time becomes sort of vital energy. There’s something almost superstitious about it, almost religious : you’ve spend time, you’ve use toxic materials that drain your life force, and you pour that energy into a form that isn’t alive, but that you bring to life - that you animate - in the sense of “anima,” spirit. Animism. When I work, I often think about devotion, as a kind of inner force or calling, perhaps from somewhere beyond the human realm.

— Your sculptures seem to reference precise, intricate objects, as if they served some unknown purpose, held a hidden meaning…
All objects serve a purpose, in some dimension or other. But we’re not always aware of it. For exemple, I buy and collect objects I find in flea markets. Sometimes, in Japan or California, I find tools whose purpose no one remembers. Like relics of a foreign culture we have no access to, or remnants of a long-lost civilization.
It’s like forgotten words. In every page of Huysmans, I come across words that have disappeared.
In a way, sculpture might be, for me, the most direct way to give something presence, to animate what’s inanimate, to create a presence that makes you move through space. To create something that captures more than its material, but time too. It’s about making things exist. That’s what we have.
And poetry, language, really, it’s all we have. Words and things.
In everyday life, there are moments that feel like miracles or visions, revealing forms that uncover possibilities or beauty, already there or still unfolding. Then, afterwards, we try to recreate those moments or to make new ones. That’s what the work is.