Hiroshi Sugimoto
Encyclopedia
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
photographer currently dividing his time between Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, USA. His catalog is made up of a number of series, each having a distinct theme and similar attributes.
Life and works
Hiroshi Sugimoto was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. In 1970, Sugimoto studied politics and sociology at Rikkyō UniversityRikkyo University
, also known as Saint Paul's University, is a private university, based on Christian precepts, in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. There is a suburban campus in Niiza in nearby Saitama.It is known for its liberal climate symbolized by the motto -History:...
in Tokyo. In 1974, he retrained as an artist and received his BFA in Fine Arts at the Art Center College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, California. Afterward, Sugimoto settled in New York City. Sugimoto has spoken of his work as an expression of ‘time exposed’, or photographs serving as a time capsule for a series of events in time. His work also focuses on transience of life, and the conflict between life and death.
Sugimoto is also deeply influenced by the writings and works of Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
, as well as the Dadaist and Surrealist movements as a whole. He has also expressed a great deal of interest in late 20th century modern architecture.
His use of an 8×10 large-format
Large format
Large format refers to any imaging format of 4×5 inches or larger. Large format is larger than "medium format", the 6×6 cm or 6×9 cm size of Hasselblad, Rollei, Kowa, Pentax etc cameras , and much larger than the 24×36 mm frame of 35 mm format.The main advantage...
camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
and extremely long exposures have garnered Sugimoto a reputation as a photographer of the highest technical ability. He is equally acclaimed for the conceptual and philosophical aspects of his work.
Sugimoto began his work with Dioramas in 1976, a series in which he photographed displays in natural history museums. The cultural assumption that cameras always show us reality tricks many viewers into assuming the animals in the photos are real until they examine the pictures carefully. His series Portraits, begun in 1999, is based on a similar idea. In that series, Sugimoto photographs wax figures of Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
and his wives. These wax figures are based on portraits from the 16th century and when taking the picture Sugimoto attempts to recreate the lighting that would have been used by the painter.
Begun in 1978, Sugimoto's Theatres series involved photographing old American movie palaces and drive-ins, exposing the film for the duration of the entire film, the film projector providing the sole lighting. The luminescent screen in the centre of the composition
Composition (visual arts)
In the visual arts – in particular painting, graphic design, photography and sculpture – composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art or a photograph, as distinct from the subject of a work...
, the architectural details and the seats of the theatre are the only subjects in the photographs, and the unique lighting gives the works a surreal look, as a part of Sugimoto's attempt to reveal time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
in photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
.
In 1980 he began working on an ongoing series of photographs of the sea and its horizon, Seascapes, in locations all over the world, using an old-fashioned large-format camera to make exposures of varying duration. His Architecture series (2000–03) consists of blurred images of well-known examples of Modernist architecture.
For his 2009 series Lightning Fields he abandoned the use of the camera, producing photographs using a
400,000 volt Van de Graaff generator
Van de Graaff generator
A Van de Graaff generator is an electrostatic generator which uses a moving belt to accumulate very high voltages on a hollow metal globe on the top of the stand. It was invented in 1929 by American physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff. The potential differences achieved in modern Van de Graaff...
to apply an electrical charge directly onto the film. The highly detailed results combine bristling textures and branching sparks into highly evocative images.
Sugimoto is also an accomplished architect. He approaches all of his work from many different perspectives, and architecture is one component that he uses to design the settings for his exhibitions. His recent projects include an architectural commission at Naoshima Contemporary Art Center in Japan, for which Sugimoto designed and built a Shinto shrine. He also gets involved with the performance art occurring beside them. This allows him to frame his works precisely the way he wants to.
In 2009 U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
selected Sugimoto's Boden Sea, Uttwil (1993) as the cover for their album No Line on the Horizon to be released in March that year. This image had previously been used by sound artists Richard Chartier and Taylor Deupree for their 2006 CD inspired by Sugimoto's "seascapes" series. Sugimoto noted it was merely a "coincidence" that the image appears on both album covers. In addition, he notes that the agreement with U2 was a "stone age deal" or, artist-to-artist. No cash exchanged hands, rather a barter agreement which allows Sugimoto to use the band's song "No Line on the Horizon" (partly inspired by the "Boden Sea" image) in any future project.
Exhibitions
He has exhibited extensively in major museums and galleries throughout the world, including the Museum of Contemporary ArtMuseum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum with three locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near Walt Disney Concert Hall...
in Los Angeles (1994), the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, New York (1995); Deutsche Guggenheim
Deutsche Guggenheim
The Deutsche Guggenheim is an art museum, located in the ground floor of the Deutsche Bank building, a sandstone building constructed in 1920 on the Unter den Linden boulevard in Berlin, Germany....
, Berlin (2000); the Kunsthaus Bregenz
Kunsthaus Bregenz
The Kunsthaus Bregenz presents temporary exhibitions of international contemporary art in Bregenz, capital of the Austrian Federal State of Vorarlberg...
, Austria (2002); the Serpentine Gallery
Serpentine Gallery
The Serpentine Gallery is an art gallery in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, central London. It focuses on modern and contemporary art. The exhibitions, architecture, education and public programmes attract approximately 750,000 visitors a year...
, London (2003) and the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain
Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain
The Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, often known simply as the Fondation Cartier, is a contemporary art museum located at 261 boulevard Raspail in the 14th arrondissement of the French capital, Paris...
, Paris (2004). A major 30-year survey of his work opened at the Mori Art Museum
Mori Art Museum
The Mori Art Museum is a contemporary art museum founded by the real estate developer Minoru Mori in the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower in the Roppongi Hills complex both of which he built in Tokyo, Japan....
, Tokyo in 2005 and travelled to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the...
, Washington, D.C. and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth was first granted a Charter from the State of Texas in 1892 as the "Fort Worth Public Library and Art Gallery", evolving through several name changes and different facilities in Fort Worth...
, Texas (2006). In 2007, a European retrospective began at K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen
The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is the art collection of the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, located in Düsseldorf. United by this institution are three different exhibition venues: the K20 at Grabbeplatz, the K21 in the Ständehaus and the Schmela Haus...
, Düsseldorf (2007) and traveled to the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Neue Nationalgalerie
Neue Nationalgalerie
Neue Nationalgalerie at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin...
, Berlin and Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland. (2008).
In 2005, Japan Society
Japan Society (New York)
Founded in 1907, Japan Society is a nonprofit, nonpolitical organization that aims to brings the people of Japan and the United States closer together through understanding, appreciation and cooperation...
, New York, and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery joins the Freer Gallery of Art to form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art. The Sackler celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2012....
, Washington, organized a US and Canadian tour of "Hiroshi Sugimoto: History of History", an exhibition curated by Sugimoto of his own personal collection of antiquities.
Awards
- 2001 – Hasselblad Foundation International AwardHasselblad AwardThe Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography is an award granted to "a photographer recognized for major achievements".The award – and the foundation – was set up from the estate of Erna and Victor Hasselblad...
(Hasselblad Honour). - 2009 – Japanese Art Association: Praemium ImperialePraemium ImperialeThe Praemium Imperiale is an arts prize awarded since 1989 by the imperial family of Japan on behalf of the Japan Art Association in the fields painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and theatre/film...
prize for the ‘Painting’ category
Books
- Seascapes. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1994. ISBN 0914357328.
- Time Exposed. London: Thames & Hudson, 1995. ISBN 0500974276.
- In Praise of Shadows. Germany: Steidl, 2000. ISBN 4771334145.
- Theatres. Koln: Walther Konig, 2006. ISBN 0615115969.
External links
- Biography, interviews, essays, artwork images and video clips from PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
series Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First CenturyContemporary artContemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
- Season 3 (2005). - official webpage
- 2006 Virtual Exhibition at the Hirshhorn
- Interactive web catalogue for "Hiroshi Sugimoto: Photographs of 'Joe' " at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
- Hiroshi Sugimoto at SHPcontemporary fine art
- Hiroshi Sugimoto at Gagosian Gallery
- Listing at Luminous Lint