Issei Suda

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The work of Issei Suda (1940-2019) is distinct in contemporary avant-garde Japanese photography for its celebration of the beauty of theeveryday. His black-and-white pictures reflect on the apparent banality ofurban life, capturing "the little surprises usually ignored in our world": theshadow of a figure, the shapes of the street, the expressions on strangers' faces. Suda's practice revealed the tensions between old and new Japan,juxtaposing the ingrained visual traditions of Japanese culture with theprevailing western vocabulary of fashion, advertising, and leisure, as seenthrough his observant and tender lens.