Hiroshi Sugimoto: Revolution - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3775734716 ISBN 13: 9783775734714

Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2012

Synopsis

Hiroshi Sugimoto is one of the best-known photographic artists of our time. His unique accomplishment in photography has been to contradict the medium's conventional task--namely, to record reality as precisely as possible. In Sugimoto's work, one is confronted with aformal reduction of images, by which he addresses fundamental questions of space and time, past and present, art and science, imagination and reality. "I was concerned with revealing an ancient stage of human memory through the medium of photography," he said in 2002. "Whether it is individual memory or the cultural memory of mankind itself, my work is about returning to the past and remembering where we came from and how we came about." This volume presents a group of images that Sugimoto has been working on for a long time. From a technical perspective, the nature of the pictures is undeniably photographic, but in terms of how they are perceived and understood, they might be more readily ascribed to a painterly or conceptual sphere. The point of departure for the 15 works, titled "Revolution, " is a nocturnal seascape, rotated 90 degrees to turn the horizons into vertical lines, dissipating the Romantic image of the night. The suite's title alludes not to social unrest, but rather to an overturning of previously accepted laws or practices through new insights or methods. Without changing the pictures' material substance or subject, the usual connotations of nocturnes are obviated; instead, highly original abstract configurations emerge.

About this title

Product Description

It is one of the paradoxes of the medium of photography that the viewer constantly shifts back and forth between perception related to the motif of the image and aesthetic observation. Hiroshi Sugimoto, one of the most eminent artists of our time, has reflected upon the different aspects of the medium in a way that almost no one else has, making them visible in his striking series of photographs, in which, as a rule, he generally places a subject at the center. Dioramas are followed by cinemas, seascapes, chambers of horror, architectural photos, portraits, pine trees, conceptual shapes, and other motifs. This is the first volume to present a group of works that the artist has been working on for a long time. Under the title of Revolution, nighttime seascapes are presented in large format, capturing the course of the moon over a longer period of time. The special way the pictures are exhibited the images are turned ninety degrees creates disturbing impressions that, depending on the region of the world and the latitude, exhibit clear distinctions.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 3775734716
• ISBN 13: 9783775734714
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 88
• Editor: Museum Brandhorst München/Munich