Naoki Sutter-Shudo

Don pur de la nature

January 21–March 13, 2021

This show is composed of sticks and a video.
Sticks are foraged branches, from near my studio.
They are Nature’s pure gift, they’re products of the Sun.
They grew to their zenith, then fell, one by one.

The Sun (notion of Noon): the most elevated,
It gives life, the highest, though uncompensated.
If you fixate on it, it will burn up your eyes,
So the Sun is abstract (it in fact slowly dies).

The Sun consumes itself, as above so below.
It produces and kills, all with its flaming glow.
Sticks dry under the Sun, until I caress them,
Consistently sand, till they shine like a gem.

It’s somewhat unskilled, a slow work (time and care)
Reveals the shape within. Past and Present, somewhere
Sheathed in, appear through touch. That is the only essence
Just steady caressing (it’s really quite pleasant).

These smooth sticks: abstract, good, absolute, simple, real,
Pure wood material (you should touch it and feel).
A gift must keep moving. The cycle perseveres,
As the birth of children, the advent of new years.

The sticks are actually the Sun made visible.
Or perhaps I believe it's Sunshine made physical.
As for the video, it’s embedded in trade,
It shows sculptures handmade, then on a screen displayed.


Naoki Sutter-Shudo (b.1990, Paris) lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Crèvecoeur, Paris and Marseille; XYZ Collective, Tokyo; Bodega, New York; and The Steakhouse Doskoi, Tokyo. Recent group exhibitions include Le Plateau FRAC Île-de-France, Paris; Commercial Street, Los Angeles; Crèvecoeur, Paris; von ammon co., Washington D.C.; and Freedman Fitzpatrick, Los Angeles, among others. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.