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[These photographs] re-create the imaginative visions of the architecture before the architect built the building.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
HIROSHI SUGIMOTO (B. 1948)
Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1997
Details
HIROSHI SUGIMOTO (B. 1948)
Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1997
gelatin silver print, flush-mounted on thick rag board, backed with aluminum
titled in ink (on the aluminum backing)
58½ x 47in. (147.5 x 119.3cm.)
Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1997
gelatin silver print, flush-mounted on thick rag board, backed with aluminum
titled in ink (on the aluminum backing)
58½ x 47in. (147.5 x 119.3cm.)
Provenance
Fiona Cowan, London;
Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, Under the Influence, February 27, 2007, lot 249.
Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, Under the Influence, February 27, 2007, lot 249.
Literature
Brougher and Elliott, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo Hatje Canz, 2006, p. 197;
Bonami, Sugimoto: Architecture, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Hatje Kantz, 2007, p. 113.
Bonami, Sugimoto: Architecture, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Hatje Kantz, 2007, p. 113.
Further Details
Sugimoto made a series of images of iconic examples of 20th century architecture. His deliberate soft focus eliminates all distracting detail and emphasises the essential forms. Each building is distilled to its crucial, signature elements that ensure instant recognition. He has managed effectively to evoke the spirit of these buildings, as one might perceive them in a dream, as concepts, rather than reminding the viewer of their physical mass. His approach bears little relation to traditional architectural photography and is better understood as a modern expression of the poetics of pictorialism.