Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Accelerated Buddha

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Hall of Thirty-Three Bays, 1995, Hiroshi Sugimoto
Hiroshi Sugimoto: I came for the Seascapes, I stayed for the Hall of Thirty-Three Bays. I love Sea of Buddhas, 1995, his series of nearly identical photos of the Sanjusangendo, shrine in Kyoto. They’re generally under-appreciated, partly because they work best when seen all together.
Fortunately, Chicago has started making up for the Cow Parade embarrassment by putting the whole series of Sea of Buddha on view at the Smart Gallery at the University of Chicago until Jan. 4th.
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Hiroshi Sugimoto, Still image from Accelerated Buddha, added 2013
Also on view, the artist’s rarely seen video, Accelerated Buddha, which rocks like only an increasingly shimmering animation of nearly identical still photos with a sharp electronic soundtrack by Ken Ikeda can.
Related: an interview with Hiroshi Sugimoto [update, which I retrieved from the Internet Archive, since the original site is gone.]

Interview with Hiroshi Sugimoto, March 1997
by William Jeffett
Edited from Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Catalogue Hiroshi Sugimoto, from an exhibition held 1997
WJ. How and when did you first take up working with photography?
HS. When I was six or seven years old, the science teacher at my elementary school taught us to make photographs with light sensitive blue paper. By placing an object on this paper under direct light we could transfer its shape to the paper’s surface. This activity made a strong impression, not only on the paper, but on my mind. As I think about it now, it was as if I had started at the very moment of the invention of photography as if I was reliving the experiences of photographers like Niepce, Daguerre and Fox Talbot.
WJ. You have lived in the United States for most of your career. How has this shaped the development of your approach to photography?
HS. Wherever I lived, art was the only activity that interested me. But both the move to a new country and the fact that photography is a relatively young medium seemed to welcome new attitudes. However, while living in a new country, I started to deal in ancient Japanese art and consequently was involved with continuity and tradition. I think my work is the product of both of these influences.
WJ. What does it mean for you to have a show in the Sainsbury Centre with its rich collections of world art?
HS. The Sainsbury Centre has a collection of several works of ancient Japanese art that were acquired from me while I was still a dealer, and I feel that this exhibition of my own work brings these two parts of my life and activities together. I think it is very good to see one’s work together with ancient art. Looking back gives a sense of perspective you cannot get when looking at works of your contemporaries.
WJ. Often there is a sense of stillness in your work, as if time were somehow frozen. Indeed, time is one of the features more evident in your work, and in the past you have even used very long exposures in a time lapse. Could you tell me about your thoughts on time in your work in general?
HS. Time is one of the most abstract concepts human beings have created. No other animals have a sense of time, only humans have a sense of time. But time is not absolute; the time measured by watches is one kind of time, but it is not the only kind. The awareness of time can be found in ancient human consciousness, arising from the memory of death. Early humans buried their loved ones and left marks at the grave site, trying to remember images of the dead. Now, photography also remembers the past. I am tracing this beginning of time, when humans began to name things and remember. In my Seascape series, you may see this concept.
WJ. Your work has taken both natural and highly artificial subjects as a point of departure (Seascapes and Dioramas). Where would you situate yourself in relation to artifice, on the one hand, and nature on the other?
HS. The natural history dioramas attracted me both because of their artificiality and because they seemed so real. These displays attempt to show what nature is like, but in fact they are almost totally man-made. On the other hand, when I look at nature I see the artificiality behind it. Even though the seascape is the least changed part of nature, population and the resulting pollution have made nature into something artificial.
WJ. Do you manipulate the image? In what way does your work interrogate the process of looking?
HS. Before we start talking about manipulation, we have to confirm the way we see. Is there any solid, original image of the world to manipulate from? Each individual has manipulated vision. Fish see things the way fish see, insects see things the way insects see. The way man sees things has already been manipulated. We see things the way we want to see. Of course I manipulate. Artists create excitement by manipulating a boring world. All art is manipulation, to take still photography with black and white images is further manipulation, but before all this the very first manipulation is seeing.
WJ. You work in series and in this respect your work parallels the approach of movements like Minimalism or even Pop Art. Could you tell me why you have adopted a serial approach and how you see your photography in relation to other forms of contemporary art?
HS. I see the serial approach in my work as part of a tradition, both oriental and occidental – Hokusai’s views as well as Cézanne’s landscapes or Monet’s Haystacks, Cathedrals and Waterlilies.
WJ. Do you see time as an important component in the Hall of Thirty-Three Bays series?
HS. Time is an important component of all of my work. In my videotape Accelerated Buddha, time takes on an accelerated shape.
WJ. Your earlier series devoted to the Dioramas, Seascapes and Theatres depict subjects which are not recognizably Japanese, while the Hall of Thirty-Three Bays is based on one of the most important shrines in Japan. Could you tell me why you chose this series to work on over the last six years and how it relates to your other work?
HS. All of my works are related conceptually. The photographs of the Hall of Thirty-Three Bays extend the concept behind the Seascape series: repetition with subtle differences. Even though these images seem similar to those of the Wax Figures, I see them more as a ‘Sea of Buddhas’.
WJ. In what way does the series have a connection with Buddhist thought?
HS. I don’t think that this series has more of a connection with Buddhist thought than any of my others. It interested me, however, that I was photographing this temple, built as a result of the fear of a millennium 2000 years after the birth of Buddha, at a time when we ourselves are approaching a millennium 2000 years after the death of Christ.
WJ. You said you made each of the photographs from this series at the same hour of the morning. Could you say why and explain a little about your working method?
HS. The photographs were all taken between 6.00 and 7.30am so that the natural light would be soft and diffused, also so that each image would be photographed in the same light. Working at this hour also allowed me to be alone in the Temple since the monks are not around until 7.30am. Each subject calls for different working hours. Only the Seascapes allow me to work 24 hours non-stop.
WJ. The Hall of Thirty-Three Bays depicts a sacred subject. Do you see your work as in any way engaged with the sacred?
HS. The relationship between the Buddha series and religious thought is somehow parallel to the one between the Seascapes and nature. Pollution has made nature artificial and the commercialization of traditional religions has de-spiritualized them.

2003-10-27, Talk of The Town

TALK OF THE TOWN
COMMENT/ RUSH IN REHAB/ Hendrik Hertzberg on pill-popper Rush Limbaugh’s hypocrisy.
S.I. DISPATCH/ THE WRECK/ Ben McGrath on the reaction to the Staten Island Ferry disaster.
DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY/ NOT LOST IN TRANSLATION/ Boris Fishman witnesses a major kissing of Mikhail Gorbachev at The Pierre.
DEPT. OF SIGNAGE/THE MAN AND THE HAND/ Nick Paumgarten talks about the walking man disappearing from the “don’t walk” signs.
DEPT. OF REMEMBERING/ TWO FROM BERLIN/ Jane Kramer talks September 11th memorials with Berlin conceptual artists Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock.

“We can easily believe that Bill Viola is worth ten Scorseses.”

Them’s fightin’ words. In his Cinema Militans Lecture, Greenaway thought he’d rile up his audience at the Netherlands Film Festival with his opening, “Cinema died on the 31st September 1983.” (Killed by Mr. Remote Control, in the den, if you must know.) But it’s his claim that Viola’d trump Scorsese that’s the real “they bought yellowcake in Niger” of this speech. He’s just got Britishvision, distracted like a fish by a shiny object passing in front of him [Viola‘s up at the National Gallery right now.] And the conveniently timely evidence he cites seems, well, let’s just say we know from conveniently timed evidence over here.

Sleeping with the enemy, Peter Greenaway Bed Linens. image: bonswit.com
Sleeping with the enemy: Greenaway
texts up a set of bed linens. for sale at bonswit.com

Greenaway argues for a filmic revolution: throw off the “four tyrannies” of the text, the actor, the frame and the camera, banishing at last the “illustrated text” we’ve been suffering through for 108 years, and replacing it with true cinema.
The Guardian‘s Alex Cox sees video games and dvd’s rising up to answer Greenaway’s call, and he makes the fight local, pitting Greenaway against the British Film Establishment, as embodied by director Alan Parker. So the choice is either Prospero’s Books or The Life of David Gale?? This fight’s neither pretty nor fair.
Also in the Guardian: Sean Dodson’s report on a Nokia-sponsored campaign for the new future of cinema, a “festival” of 15-second movies to watch on your mobile phone. It’s part of London’s excellent-looking Raindance Film Festival, and it embodies perfectly the military industrial telecom entertainment complex’s idea of revolution through perpetual hardware upgrading. [It should surprise no one that the little festival is at Nokia’s website, because you can’t actually download movies on your phone yet. Utopia’s always just around the corner.]
image: badassbuddy.comMore than rallying the troops, Greenaway and Nokia are actually tottering to catch up with the next generation. Paul Thomas Anderson’s inclusion of Jeremy Blake’s animated abstractions in Punch Drunk Love. The Matrix Reloaded‘s all-CG bullet time “camera.” The Matrix launching the DVD player, for that matter. Gus van Sant’s Gerry as film-as-video-game and the multiple POV reprises of scenes in Elephant. Multi-screen master Isaac Julien, Matthew Barney, spawn of Mario Brothers. And the unscripted cinematic narrative mutations of corporate-sponsored mediums like PowerPoint and AIM buddy icons.
Greenaway’s righter than he knows, but the evolution’s already underway, with or without him. It always has been

I have a friend at the MPAA

The folks at artblog were going through their trash and found my article on the unsanctioned trading of video art screener tapes. They were upset about my outing Chris Hughes, the Pamela and the Richard Kramlich of screeners. “Who benefits [from exposing and shutting this nice guy down]? Not the public, certainly” they criticized.
They kindly posted my response. I don’t think screener tapes automatically harm video art or artists; net net, they help spread the art’s influence and impact. I still feel that writing about this practice was a good thing, and good things have come from it.
Then I see Jack Valenti, picking yet another misleading, irrational and disingenuous fight against the evil VCR by banning screener tapes, and I worry. I worry that maybe, just maybe, could the screener tape seed have been planted by my article? After all, I worry, I have a friend at the MPAA.

Whereas, Ten Hours of Polish Film is NOT an Ordeal…

I came to Kieslowski for the fateful mystery of La Double Vie de Veronique, but I stayed for the unassuming, naturalistic power of the Dekalog.
This seminal ten-part series of films is playing this weekend at Symphony Space in NYC. POV has an excellent write-up, with good links to get you in the mood.
The Decalogue was one of the greatest unwatchable works of film, ever. For years in North America, the series, which Kieslowski and writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz originally made for Polish TV, was kept off of video and DVD by weird rights disputes. But it’d turn up at film festivals and cinematheques, and you’d suddenly have to figure out how to shoehorn ten hours of moviegoing into two or three days. It was an experience prewired to disappoint, or, more precisely, leave you wanting.
By 2000, I’d only managed to see half of the installments, when an odd one-year distribution agreement brought a bare-bones 2-DVD set to the market. I snapped it up, and since then I’ve been steeping regularly in some of the most engrossing storytelling around.
This year, The Decalogue reappeared in a far superior 3-disc format, complete with several Kieslowski interviews and other real supplementary material. So get up to Symphony Space for at least a couple of episodes, then watch and rewatch them at home. Of course, GreenCine rents them one disc at a time; it may be better, emotionally, to pace yourself.
[related: the effects of watching Dekalog on an impressionable new filmmaker]

On Transit and Memory

Santiago Calatrava talks about his vision for the transit hub he’s designing for the World Trade Center site. I’m a fan, although there doesn’t seem to be a lot of design meat here.
And the New Yorker‘s Jane Kramer gets Berlin artists/memorial designers Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock to talk about a memorial for the World Trade Center. Their comments seem well suited to the discourse of a year or so ago, when entertaining the world of possibilities didn’t feel so escapist as it does now.
In fact, last year, I was very impressed by their proposed Holocaust memorial.

American Ordealism

Electric Earth, 1999, Doug Aitken, image:victoria-miro.comIs it a coincidence that The Cremaster Cycle, the filmic ordeal-in-a-black-box, is playing in London at the same time as David Blaine, the Brooklyn ordeal-in-a-clear-box?
Read Peter Bradshaw’s Guardian review as if you’re seeing the movies for the first time.
And read about David Blaine getting out of his box as if you thought you’d already heard the last of him.
Late Saturday night, after a party for Doug Aitken at the Wapping Project, an artspace, the gridlock surrounding David Blaine’s impending egress was blamed for the complete absence of cabs that left 20 of us (including Doug and Thomas Demand) stranded in B.F. East London. Result: a group of us walked back to our hotel in Westminster, along the Thames, for about two hours. Ordealism.

Olafur Eliasson: The Weather Project at Tate Modern

turbine hall, Tate modern, image: greg.org

Just got back from the preview and party for The Weather Project, Olafur Eliasson’s absolutely breathtaking installation at the Tate Modern in London. The Turbine Hall is something like 500 feet long, the full length and height of the building.
I can tell you that Olafur created a giant sun out of yellow sodium streetlamps, but that doesn’t begin to describe the experience of seeing it and being in the space. It is this awareness of one’s own perception which is at the heart of his work. Not only does he use and transform this unwieldy cavern, he intensifies the viewer’s sight and sense of being in the space.
And as always, Olafur lays bare the mechanisms that create the unavoidably sublime experience, which in this case include, literally, smoke and mirrors. You can see exactly how you’re being manipulated affected, and you’re fine with it. At least I am.
[update: the Guardian‘s Fiachra Gibbons likes it, too.]

Goin’ to London

Olafur Eliasson, Your Sun Machine, 1997, image:Sao Paulo Bienal
Your Sun Machine, Olafur Eliasson, 1997
Marc Foxx Gallery. Image:Sao Paulo Bienal

I’m heading to London for a few days.
Going to one friend’s exhibition opening and another friend’s art fair. I’ll be doing a little reporting, even though I’m not sure where to find the “Internet” over there.
I have a great idea; at a moment to be appointed (but it has to be today, in time for my trip), everyone goes outside and marks up the outside of their building with their wi-fi network information. Then, a few minutes later, we all disperse into the crowd.
Forward this message to all your friends.

From the Dept. of WTF

“It’s Nike Ground! This revolutionary project is transforming and updating your urban space. Nike is introducing its legendary brand into squares, streets, parks and boulevards: Nikesquare, Nikestreet, Piazzanike, Plazanike or Nikestrasse will appear in major world capitals over the coming years…”
And where does this new and friendly revolution begin? Oh, where so many of western civ’s not-so-great-after-all ideas heil from: Austria. “Starting from 1 January 2004 Karlsplatz (in Vienna) is going to be called Nikeplatz.”
! indeed.
[via Archinect]
[update: this turns out to be art by 0100101110101101.org, which released it’s press release Oct. 10, four days after Nike denied its involvement, and a full three days before Archinect or I posted it. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good conclusion, I guess.]
[update 2: and to answer reader Chris’s question, no, all of Austria’s not all that bad after all. Schwarzenegger’s our problem now, anyway.]

Seeing Lost In Translation on the Upper East Side

Lost in Translation soundtrack, image:amazon.com

Context isn’t everything, but it counts. We just got back from seeing Lost In Translation with a multi-generational crowd, in the movie theater around the corner from Holly Golightly’s brownstone. As they say, it’s the little differences:

  • “Gorgeous sheets.” –Woman of a certain age behind us, upon the cut to Bill Murray sitting on the Park Hyatt bed. [300-count egyptian cotton? Nice, but could be better, lady. Now pipe down.]
  • “hahahaha.” –me, laughing alone at the previously unrecognized 4:20 reference.
  • “nice soundtrack.” –me, wondering if the limited edition soundtrack is out yet.
  • “soundtrack’d be better if the idiot in front of us’d stop proclaiming Shinjuku landmarks to his mother/sugar mama. It ain’t no Harajuku, pal. Now pipe down.” – me.
  • “I loved it.” –adult children of the sheets woman, after it was over.
  • “I hated it.” –the sheets woman.