Hiroshi Sugimoto
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Hiroshi Sugimoto, born on February 23, 1948, is a Japanese photographer currently dividing his time between Tokyo, Japan and New York City, United States. His catalogue is made up of a number of series, each having a distinct theme and similar attributes...
garden zen
It's pre-photography, a fossilization of time, ... Americans have done the Zen garden to death. I wanted to do something different.
call material means opposite research
I call it the New Material Research Laboratory, which means just the opposite - that it is about old techniques,
photography memories found-objects
Photography is like a found object. A photographer never makes an actual subject; they just steal the image from the world...Photography is a system of saving memories. It's a time machine, in a way, to preserve the memory, to preserve time.
challenges trying way
I try to never be satisfied; this way I will always be challenging my spirit.
photography lying believe
Humans have changed the landscape so much, but images of the sea could be shared with primordial people. I just project my imagination on to the viewer, even the first human being. I think first and then imagine some scenes. Then I go out and look for them. Or I re-create these images with my camera. I love photography because photography is the most believable medium. Painting can lie, but photography never lies: that is what people used to believe.
photography records way
Fossils work almost the same way as photography as a record of history. The accumulation of time and history becomes a negative of the image. And this negative comes off, and the fossil is the positive side. This is the same as the action of photography.
vision done problem
If I already have a vision, my work is almost done. The rest is a technical problem.
photography function
To me photography functions as a fossilization of time.
photography art thinking
I didn't want to be criticized for taking low-quality photographs, so I tried to reach the best, highest quality of photography and then to combine this with a conceptual art practice. But thinking back, that was the wrong decision [laughs]. Developing a low-quality aesthetic is a sign of serious fine art-I still see this.
photography garden done
It's pre-photography, a fossilization of time, Americans have done the Zen garden to death. I wanted to do something different.
religious night glowing
One night I had an idea while I was at the movies: to photograph the film itself. I tried to imagine photographing an entire feature film with my camera. I could already picture the projection screen making itself visible as a white rectangle. In my imagination, this would appear as a glowing, white rectangle; it would come forward from the projection surface and illuminate the entire theater. This idea struck me as being very interesting, mysterious, and even religious.
religious art feelings
Art and religion have the same origin. Art first, or religion first? Maybe consciousness first! Consciousness always comes with religious feeling and artistic identification. It's the same origin.
religious believe animal
I want to put it back together now, this artistic expression that contains religious feeling. I want to investigate: What was the origin? What's happened in the human mind? Can we trace back the moment of the creation of human consciousness? And why did only humans gain consciousness, not other animals? So, evolution? I don't know whether or not I can believe evolution. Maybe we wait for another 100,000 years and then apes get consciousness.