Hiroshi Sugimoto

as we have the art - the world biggest art fair - right now, I went to the opening yesterday night, and saw some really interesting work from Hiroshi Sugimoto.

I knew some of his other work, but wasn' t aware about his architecture serie

"Early-twentieth century Modernism greatly transformed our lives, liberating the human spirit from untold decoration. No longer needing to draw attention from God, all aristocratic attempts at ostentation have fallen away. At last we avail ourselves of mechanical aids far beyond our human powers, attaining the freedom to shape things at will. I decided to trace the beginnings of our age via architecture. Pushing my old large-format camera’s focal length out to twice-infinity—with no stops on the bellows rail, the view through the lens was an utter blur—I discovered that superlative architecture survives, however dissolved, the onslaught of blurred photography. Thus I began erosion-testing architecture for durability, completely melting away many of the buildings in the process." Hiroshi Sugimoto

Source

His works touched me.

- Question to the moderators:
Is it ok, when I link images from museums, etc?

I could make a comparison of his work, compared to some - point and shoot-shots, I did at the same place....

Michael,

It's fine to use the pictures as long as it meets these conditions,

1. The use does not denigrate them.

2. We give attribution and add "discussed under "fair use" doctrine" .

3. Discuss in an Editorial fashion

4. Critique according civil standards but not ridicule or defaming.

5. Not to include porn or other offensive material in the same thread.

Then we are just discussing this art and it should be fine. However, I'm not a lawyer and you have a common sense knowledge of use of images from your own country.

I like the project!

Thanks for your original idea and contribution,

Asher

Ok Asher,
I promise, no porn

to make it clear: I took these shots, some years ago, with a P & S-cam, practically no edits, and no expectation at all, this to be great pictures, special architectures images, or even art. They' re posted to show, how the place looks, some possible angles, etc









and finally:

ok, and here's what Sugimoto made out of it:



The image was found from a art gallery: www.mitterrand-cramer.com

In reality, the image is about 150 x 120 cm, unframed, and it looks different, than on the web.
Usually, Sugimoto just takes one work from on place; but inside this chappel, he made a interior, which is inside the catalog, but I didn't find it in the web, so I leave it out.

Just to give a other example., here's a work of the Chrysler building:

Ok, now back from another opening...

So what's the deal behind this archi-serie of Sugimoto?

Easy, one might think, just a bit of blur -
but, its not a cheap out of focus-trick; its not a tecnical point:

The entire serie contains a lot of famous architecture icon's, examples of modernity, errected through the last century by the big boys, like:
Mies van der Rohe, Frank Gehry, Frank Loyd Wright, Ando, Le Corbusier, HdM, etc.

As we saw photos of these buildings many times before, they beeing a parth of the common mental image archive, that everbody preserves.

By shooting these well known, famous buildings with a defined out of focus, all the details (in contradiction to todays digital obsession of getting more details) are lost - the buildings are reduced to their basic shapes, enhancing the sense of space and structure, light and shadow - somehow in the magic status nascendi of becoming a image, bringing the architecture of the specific building to its own roots.

One might try to throw the word °lucky punch° in the discussion, but myself having used view cameras - with shifts and tilts - for years, I can feel the movements, Sugimoto did with his 13 x 18.... so the lucky punch argument isn't valide.

And finally, Sugimoto found a interesting solution to take photos of a object, that had been shot to dead - thousand times - before, which is - as we all know, not a easy task.

Gehry, at Bilbao:





UN-Headquartier:

Hi Michael, I recall having come across Sugimoto's work in the past. Of his work the images that have stuck in my mind are taken in theatres with long exposures: http://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/theater.html

I can't say I'm attracted to or repelled by his out of focus work, but it may have inadvertently influenced my experiments using PS's noise reduction tool at full power. On screen the images looked really smooth and clean, but when I printed comparative tests with the same image sharpened my eye was drawn to the sharpened image.

Hi Jeremy

yep, the cinema and sea-series are better known.

I don't like all his architecture stuff in the same way, but the rather abstract ones are phantastic - kinda they hit me.

There's a catalogue about it, showing more of the abstract ones. Unfortunatly, these - 3 of them showing the Schindler's house - are not on the web...

Still when looking at the catalog, don't forget how the originals - 150 x 120 cm in size - dissolve the photo differently than the book's size.

I understand how some folks find some of Hiroshi Sugimoto's work somewhat vapid, especially since very few people actually see his original prints in person. I have had the good fortune to have seen quite a few of his prints in person, including some of those from his architectural series. I have also had the good fortune to meet Hiroshi very briefly. Viewing the blurry images of prominent architectural works on a 72 dpi Web page certainly gives a poor impression, particularly in venues frequented by technically-oriented camera owners. But I can tell you that viewing the actual prints is a completely different experience. I highly recommend taking advantage of any opportunity to do so, even if you currently have a low opinion of Sugimoto's work.

When viewing works such as this it's fundamental that you relinquish evaluations based on technical photography issues. Sugimoto is not a photographer, per se, but rather a photographic artist. That he uses a camera rather than brushes or pencils is, at least to a degree, an incidental matter of his preference. His work is sold as art, rather than as photography. (And it sells for some jaw-slackening prices, too.)

Ken, I just agree with your post.

So you did see the Chicago exhibition?

The prints are perfectly enlarged, with the full gamut of tonality.

I had the chance to see Sugimoto's work last week at Lucerne.

As I went with a painter-artist to see the retrospectiv, we had some very interesting discussions.

The show is impressing, even I not always found the shown pieces to be the best of Sugimoto's work, which I have started to know better since the first post of that thread.

But still - very interesting! I rarely buy catalogs anymore, but here, I couldn't resist.

Great photographer. The shot with the vultures, yikes.