Tag: hiroshi sugimoto

No, there is another. The 48 photos of 1,000 Buddha statues at Sanjūsangendō that Hiroshi Sugimoto photographed in 1995 used to be Time Exposed (Buddha Series), and then Sea of Buddha. But those similar-but-not-indentical, life-sized Buddhas, standing in 10 tiered rows, actually flank a monumental seated Buddha, a 1,001st Buddha.

And it turns out Sugimoto photographed that one, too. I think he showed it for the first time last year at Lisson Gallery in LA, and that’s where the shopaholics on the LACMA collectors committee saw it, and bought it. And thus now LACMA says, “Sea of Buddha is a series of 49 photographs that feature 1,001 statues of bodhisattvas at Sanjūsangendō temple in Kyoto.”

Sea of Buddha 049 (Triptych) is somehow listed as being made in 1995. Let’s circle back to that. It is a triptych because it is three gelatin silver prints mounted together, each one an 8-foot tall section of the 12-foot-wide print. [That’s so close to full-size—the seated figure is 11 feet tall–I’m kind of surprised Sugimoto didn’t go for it.]

About that date. Sugimoto actually produced at least two prints of this seated kannon figure before. He made a unique Sea of Buddha installation for an all-Buddha auction at Christie’s during Asia Week 2014 that included six 16×20 Buddha grid photos, and a large-format 28×36-in. lithograph of the seated Buddha. Which is also how it was presented at Lisson.

I’m going to guess that ratio preserves the scale between the sculptures. That lithograph was described as one of two produced—the other in the artist’s collection—from an “intended edition” of five+1AP. Whether it’s considered a continuation of that edition, or its own thing, that sounds to me like the triptych format print did not exist yet.

This Christie’s essay has another, new, extensive account of the circumstances of photographing the Buddhas, emphasizing the natural light at sunrise, and the two weeks of daily 3-hour access, beginning at 5:30. With a rolling ladder for “elevated framing” and a fixed focus and composition, Sugimoto was able to take up to seven images/day before the monks kicked him out.

But this workflow also means that he was not “removing” all the temple’s modernized cruft; he was shooting over it. And he was not “removing” the “fluorescent” lights; he was shooting before the monks turned them on. The 28 carved deity statues on the floor level also do not appear, which is significant, because Sugimoto surely did not have them displaced and replaced 20-28 times. So he shot over those, too. And the focal depth for the first row of Buddhas is different than the third through tenth. Did he do two passes, at two heights—each image shows eight rows, but which eight? Did he leave out the bottom row, which would have been partially obstructed by deity sculptures? Or did shooting down and cropping the Buddhas at their heads solve the problem? Did he and his rig ever cast a shadow across the Buddhas, or did a long exposure erase any human trace?

Seeing Hiroshi Sugimoto’s show at the Met in 1995 was a life-changer, and then seeing his Time Exposed (Buddha Series) photos and Accelerated Buddha, his 5-minute video, at Sonnabend in 1997 blew my mind.

Sugimoto spent ten days in 1995 photographing the 1,000 12th century kannon Buddha sculptures in the Sanjusangendō in Kyoto, in 48 images. Each identically composed photo shows 33 kannon in eight rows, for 1,584 Buddhas. There are eleven rows of statues, so there’s plenty of room for overlap while still photographing them all.

Like the video, which packs all 48 images in 1,000 times to get to a million Buddhas, Sugimoto published a book, Sea of Buddha, a little leporello that reproduced all 48 images, in an edition of 1,000, for another million Buddhas. [Except, as noted above, it’s technically 1,584 headshots of 1,000 Buddhas.]

The most extensive accounts I’ve found so far of his seven-year process of trying to get permission to photograph the Buddhas were in interviews with Phong Bui and Interview Magazine tied to a 2016 show of large-format prints of the series, retitled as Sea of Buddha, at Pace. Basically, he was a nobody getting nowhere, and either Philippe de Montebello helped, or he didn’t, until a Japanese culture bureaucrat helped him get a deal, and then he just had to pay $10,000, or $15,000. It’s kind of crazy. Sugimoto described his show at the Met as life-changing, but also as his first museum show, which, his own chronology lists fourteen museum shows before that. He said they were shown at the Met, but honestly, I don’t remember them being shown until 1997.

I was at the Sanjusangendō yesterday, and so have been thinking anew about Sugimoto’s work. And besides the shifting explanations, it feels weirdly destabilizing to see how many different formats, editions, and installations there have been over the years, all seemingly with the same date of 1995. Sugimoto’s moved major galleries multiple times, and shown the work in various single and triptych forms, in editions of 5, 15, and 25. Accelerated Buddha was shown on a single monitor in 1997, and as a wraparound three-channel video since, with different soundtracks by Ken Ikeda.

I’m all for artists continuing to make and revisit and rethink and rediscover things about their work. And to continue to push it forward as technology and technique changes. On his own site Sugimoto describes the Sanjusangendō installation as a form of conceptual art, and wonders, a bit disdainfully, “Will today’s conceptual art survive another eight-hundred years?” And I’m like, only if it has an archivist? Because it’s only been 30 years, and things are already confusing af.

[enlightenment update]即是空, 空即是色

I’ve been a Hiroshi Sugimoto fan for many years now, more or less, though I admit I’m partial to the early hits.

When his fundraising edition for the New Museum came out in 2004, I hesitated and lost the chance, but I haven’t really regretted it too much, until maybe right now.

Each of the 45 examples in Sugimoto’s edition is actually a pair of unique 8×10 negatives of the top and bottom of Tokyo University’s replica of Duchamp’s Large Glass, and unique contact prints of those same negatives. These four objects are sandwiched between two slabs of glass, and set in a wooden box.

I worred, frankly, because I didn’t think prints or negatives should be in contact with the glass like that, or necessarily with each other, either. [They’re facing opposite directions, which gives the work its interesting dark/light vibe.] I also wasn’t sure how to show it. Melva Bucksbaum’s example above, sold at Christie’s in 2018, is how I imagined it: put away in a box.

But whoever’s selling ed. 31/35 at Sotheby’s right now has figured it out, at least partially. The bois is gone, and the glass assemblage is pinned into an acrylic frame and base. It’s pretty slick, and already going for more than Bucksbaum’s low-numbered example. My window may be closing again. [update: it closed. $20,320.]

Just to be clear, this Reuters photo of the 1-ton black bags full of radioactive debris that are being stacked all over Fukushima reminded me of the most terrible Hiroshi Sugimoto seascape ever before I cropped and greyscaled it.
But the more I see of them, the less I see of Sugimoto.

Continue reading “On Fukushima And Furecon Bags”

Although Gustav Eiffel didn’t explicitly use one himself, an American engineering professor has come up with a mathematical expression for the shape of the Eiffel Tower, based on its creator’s own studies of wind resistance, torquing, and load transfer.
Which reminds me of the photos by Hiroshi Sugimoto at the Fondation Cartier, Mathematical Forms. They are monumental images of beautiful, little plaster stereometric models, which were created in 19th and early 20th c. Germany to illustrate complex trigonometric formulas. Several were published in the NY Times Magazine last month.
Elegant shape of Eiffel Tower solved mathematically [PhysOrg.com, via archinect]
Etant Donne: Le Grande Verre by Hiroshi Sugimoto through Feb. 27 at the Fondation Cartier
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Mathematical Forms [NYT Mag]

While we were in Japan, we made a detour to see the growing collection of contemporary art on Naoshima, a tiny island near Okayama, and within spitting distance of the massive Seto Inland Sea Bridge.
In explaining Naoshima, I’ve taken to calling it the Marfa of Japan, but that’s only partly accurate. Benesse represents one collector’s–not an artist’s–increasingly significant attempt to create an internationally recognized destination for contemporary art pilgrims and to revitalize/transform a dying town in the process. I think it’s mostly successful, and definitely worth the trip.
Benesse Art Site is the new umbrella moniker for four separate art projects: the just-opened Chichu Museum; Benesse House, a small museum/hotel; Seaside Park, a campground surrounded by outdoor sculptures; and Art House, permanent artist installations in abandoned 18th century buildings.
When we arrived on Naoshima, we headed first to Benesse House, which was designed by Tadao Ando. The staff was extremely helpful, even though we knew we couldn’t stay overnight (the hotel fills up a year in advance). The building was impressive, with two or three of the sublime moments Ando’s Fort Worth Museum has dozens of.
The work was all over the place; there’s stuff from a collecting phase where money outstripped sense, then from the “let’s open a museum” phase where sense caught up. Exquisite siting was a recurring theme. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Time Exposed seascape photos, installed in a courtyard overlooking the sea; Yoshihiro Suda’s invisible Weeds, and Bruce Nauman’s neon 100 Live or Die, which, by restrictions on how frequently it would be turned on, was transformed from sculpture to eagerly awaited performance spectacle.
A businessman on the ferry had boasted, “There’s a $6 million Monet up there.” [A Water Lilies diptych, which was probably more than that.] Meanwhile, the locals remain unimpressed by the $10 million early Johns hanging next to the Zen-like Pollock.
I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll post more on the Art House Project later.

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.

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.