Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto Casa Batlló, Antoní Gaudí 1998 Gelatin silver print, flush-mounted. 58 3/4 x 47 in. (149.2 x 119.4 cm). Signed in ink, printed title, date and number 2/5 on an artist’s label affixed to the reverse of the frame.
Provenance Sonnabend Gallery, New York; Private Collection, New York Literature Kunsthaus Bregenz, Hiroshi Sugimoto: Architecture of Time, n.p. Catalogue Essay Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Architecture series began in 1997 as a commission from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago for their traveling exhibition At the End of the Century: One Hundred Years of Architecture, which opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo in 1998. Since then, Sugimoto has continued to photograph icons of modernist and contemporary architecture including Casa Batlló, Antoní Gaudí, as seen in the present lot, as well as Egerstrom house, Luis Barragán (lot 72). The buildings are intentionally depicted out of focus, for the blurry image whittles them down to their bare essentials—a vague shape comprised of sketchy lines that Sugimoto imagines the buildings to have originated as in the mind of the architect. By doing so, Sugimoto’s architectural series is a conceptual visualization of preexistence, consisting of a minimal inclusion of form, light and space. Read More Artist Bio Hiroshi Sugimoto Japanese • 1948 Hiroshi Sugimoto's work examines the concepts of time, space and the metaphysics of human existence through breathtakingly perfect images of theaters, mathematical forms, wax figures and seascapes. His 8 x 10 inch, large-format camera and long exposures give an almost eerie serenity to his images, treating the photograph as an ethereal time capsule and challenging its associations of the 'instant.' In his famed Seascapes, Sugimoto sublimely captures the nature of water and air, sharpening and blurring the elements together into a seamless, formless entity. This reflection of the human condition and its relationship with time follows through his exploration of historical topics and timeless beauty as he uniquely replicates the world around us. View More Works