Customer Reviews

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Architecture

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Sugimoto's photographs are shot and printed so that the ordinary becomes surreal, something no quite of this earth. They are like abstract shapes and have a painterly feel reminding you of something familiar. This is a large and thick book and nicely printed for fans of contemporary photography.

The photographs in Hiroshi Sugimoto's "Architecture" are the gentlest of abstract art. Although the subjects have been reduced to the simplest of forms, they are still recognizable and there are no modifying or distracting elements added,

The pictures are all of iconic architecture, ranging across history from the entrance to the temple of Dendur at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, through the structures of Le Corbusier and Wright, to Gehry. The pictures are all taken from classic angles, either head on, or at 45 degrees to the structures. The pictures are all in black-and-white with deliberately blown out highlights and shadows that seldom reach into absolute black. (This light range is not the range of the American photographers of the first two-thirds of the twentieth century who prescribed a range of light from absolute black to white with the barest of specular highlights. Rather, to speak in digital terms, it's as if the entire histogram had been shifted to the right.). Most noticeably, all of the pictures are deliberately out of focus to the point where the subject is recognizable but few distinguishing surface features appear. These are elemental forms.

Sugimoto has said that he used this technique because many of the structures were time-worn and he wanted to reduce them to their basic forms. He certainly has done this and those familiar with architecture will recognize the structures without reference to the captions. Other people, including some of the essayists whose works introduce the book, have found much deeper meaning in these photographs. A good work of art often leads the mind to wander into speculation about meaning, and often the speculation reveals as much about the speculator as the art.

One may very well ask whether the book is about photography or architecture, but I suspect the photographer might answer that it is about seeing.

Another question one might ask is whether these images, which are so much alike, can survive regular scrutiny. I felt that, having read the book, I got the point and had no need for further examination at this time, although I did reexamine the pictures again and again, looking for additional meaning. On the other hand, I suspect that if I returned to this work in five years, when I had more experience, I might find something new.

Excelente libro reuniendo un trabajo impecable de Sugimoto.
Los textos que acompañan este trabajo son realmente muy buenos también.
Edición de calidad insuperable.

Hiroshi Sugimoto is known for his long-exposure photos of empty movie theaters and museums: his blurred masterpieces of public places depict both familiar, major structures and lesser-known buildings. Sugimoto: Architecture is an impressive collection of his art offers full-page unsullied black and white reproductions of his finest works and will delight fans of photography, architectural representation, and the Sugimoto style in particular.