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Lot Essay
'The human eye, devoid of the shutter, is by necessity characterized by long exposure. The exposure of the human eye is one long process - it starts as soon as the newborn opens its eyes, and ends when the eyes are closed at the end of life. We continue measuring the distance between the self and the world, relying on the inverted virtual image projected on the retina from birth to death.'(Hiroshi Sugimoto 'The Virtual Image' in Theatres, exh. cat., New York 2000, p. 17).
The overt minimalism of Sugimoto's Seascapes encourages prolonged viewing. Depicting only sea, sky and the horizon line between them, the apparent emptiness of these works, combined with the sharp factual photographic detail mystifies and entices a meditative contemplation of reality. Using the photographic medium in a way in which it hasn't been used before, Sugimoto' seascapes powerfully present an apparent paradox showing something so apparently abstract to be, in photographic fact, fascinatingly real, something so empty, to be, in photographic fact, fascinatingly rich in detail. Sugimoto believes that after a hundred or so years of photography in which the mere surprise of its ability to render an image of the world around us has dominated its function, it is now the job of the photograph to 're-surprise us'.
The necessity of the factual detail of photography to justify the transcendent and almost mystic visions that Sugimoto's images present limits the scale that his work can attain. Tyrrhenian Sea, Conca, is one of the largest formats that Sugimoto makes. The reason for this limit on scale, he has explained is because. "I want people to see the details and if you amplify too much it gets grainy. I don't want people to see the grain, because if you get too close to the photo and see the grain, the image is lost. But, if you don't see the grain you can get inside the image. This is especially important with the seascapes; people get hypnotized comparing the images. As you get close to them you become aware of very subtle patterns of waves and the quality of the air. The dots that make up the image should interfere with your experience. If you don't see the dots then this nice grey softness invites you into the photograph. Mind and matter are the issues in this first stage of my art.' (Hiroshi Sugimoto in conversation with Helena Tatay Huici, in Sugimoto exh. cat. Fundación la Caixa, Madrid, 1998, p. 16)
The overt minimalism of Sugimoto's Seascapes encourages prolonged viewing. Depicting only sea, sky and the horizon line between them, the apparent emptiness of these works, combined with the sharp factual photographic detail mystifies and entices a meditative contemplation of reality. Using the photographic medium in a way in which it hasn't been used before, Sugimoto' seascapes powerfully present an apparent paradox showing something so apparently abstract to be, in photographic fact, fascinatingly real, something so empty, to be, in photographic fact, fascinatingly rich in detail. Sugimoto believes that after a hundred or so years of photography in which the mere surprise of its ability to render an image of the world around us has dominated its function, it is now the job of the photograph to 're-surprise us'.
The necessity of the factual detail of photography to justify the transcendent and almost mystic visions that Sugimoto's images present limits the scale that his work can attain. Tyrrhenian Sea, Conca, is one of the largest formats that Sugimoto makes. The reason for this limit on scale, he has explained is because. "I want people to see the details and if you amplify too much it gets grainy. I don't want people to see the grain, because if you get too close to the photo and see the grain, the image is lost. But, if you don't see the grain you can get inside the image. This is especially important with the seascapes; people get hypnotized comparing the images. As you get close to them you become aware of very subtle patterns of waves and the quality of the air. The dots that make up the image should interfere with your experience. If you don't see the dots then this nice grey softness invites you into the photograph. Mind and matter are the issues in this first stage of my art.' (Hiroshi Sugimoto in conversation with Helena Tatay Huici, in Sugimoto exh. cat. Fundación la Caixa, Madrid, 1998, p. 16)