Where concept meets the sublime
Minimalism, the conceptual, experimentation and the search for the sublime are the keys to the work of photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, whose work in on show at the Fundació Mapfre
Is it contradictory to be a conceptual artist and at the same time search for the sublime? Eighteenth century art, especially romanticism, sought the sublime to carry the viewer to the heights of ecstasy. In contemporary times, the Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto (Tokyo, 1948) is considered a conceptual artist, and yet aesthetically, his work is not so far from the sublimity of the romanticists.
In his wonderful black and white landscapes the viewer sits silently watching the horizon. “It is a contemporary sublimity, a minimal perfection, which elevates our mind to another level,” says Philip Larratt-Smith, curator of Black Box, the first retrospective of Sugimoto in Spain, which is now on show at Barcelona's Mapfre Foundation. Nine of Sugimoto‘s endless horizons, all subtly illuminated, are displayed in the first room of the exhibition, a space of pure contemplation. As the photographer admits, “I don't aim for this but there is a calmness in the work”.
Sugimoto moved from Japan to New York to study photography in the seventies: “I did not know exactly what I would do with my life. In New York I discovered minimalism and the conceptual, and so I found my field. I wanted to investigate the origin of human consciousness.” As well as the passage of time, and how that can be altered or quite simply brought to an end.
The work on show is a voyage through explorations but instilled with the conceptual. The landscapes give way to portraits on black backgrounds of Fidel Castro or Pope John Paul II, and suddenly there is Henry VIII with all of his wives, portraits from Madame Tussaud's wax museum. Work is shot from images projected on to a white cinema screen, prehistoric landscapes and fauna from New York's Natural History Museum come to life through his shutter. Sugimoto's time machine carries us into the past. He also delves into the past in his work on electricity blasted on to photographic negatives, along the lines of photographic pioneers like William Fox Talbot, whom he admires.
As with many photographers who prefer to shun the digital world in favour of traditional methods, Sugimoto laments the passing of film and at times even finds it difficult to find the raw materials that are so vital to his work: “I have difficulties in developing; the paper is of poorer quality. Maybe there will come a point where I have to make my own film,” he says.