Let’s Stay Well in 10 Years!

Cyanotype, instructions, 2024

Ten years ago, Yamaguchi was working as a breakdancer in New York. Through various career changes since then, he now works as a visual artist in Paris. Having drifted to a place unimaginable from those days, Yamaguchi found himself thinking of the phrase “Let’s stay well in 10 years!” while spending his days by the Seine. He printed photographs taken during walks along the river—which had become a daily routine—using the cyanotype process, and used this childlike phrase as the work’s title. Born as a copying technique for architectural blueprints, cyanotype was a method that symbolized future plans and visions, as suggested by the Japanese expression “to draw a blueprint.” Yet it also possesses an unstable quality: its colors fade easily under the influence of light and time. Yamaguchi’s choice of this technique embodies a skepticism toward the certainty implied by the word “plan.” He entrusted to the shifting tones of blue both the trajectory of a life that has unfolded beyond his own predictions, and the anticipation and anxiety toward an uncertain future ahead. It is also an expression of the will to move forward while accepting uncertainty. An instruction sheet is enclosed with each purchased work. This constitutes a modest agreement between the artist and the purchaser.