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Hiroshi Sugimoto | 
 enlarge | Authors: Kerry Brougher, David Elliott
Creator: Hiroshi Sugimoto
Publisher: Hatje Cantz Publishers
Category: Book
Buy New: $150.00
New (5) Used (1) from $145.00
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 439447
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 8.7
Dimensions (in): 11.2 x 10.4 x 1.5
ISBN: 3775716408
Dewey Decimal Number: 770
EAN: 9783775716406
ASIN: 3775716408
Publication Date: November 15, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Hiroshi Sugimoto's images freeze time and space, revealing the workings of our own vision, slowing down the act of perception long enough that it becomes a palpable component of his work. His earliest photographs were images of decadent movie palaces built in the 20s and 30s. By timing the exposure of his photos to the exact length of the film being screened, he produced images that depict theater interiors bathed in the magical glare of an all-white screen: pure light. Next Sugimoto began a body of work that he continues to this day, photographing views of the sea from land, traveling around the world to make pictures that, despite their vastly different geographic origins, seem at first to be the same, with only slight variations. Their captions, however, confirm that each is of a different body of water: Caspian, Ligurian, Black. Other series include his out-of-focus impressions of landmark architectural monuments, wherein the Empire State Building, Le Corbusier's Chapel de Notre Dame du Haut, and Tadao Ando's Church of Light in Osaka, among others, are essentialized rather than documented. This volume presents a monographic retrospective of Hiroshi Sugimoto's complete body of work, including the projects described above and others. New, mostly unpublished images from his recent color work are featured: impressions of the impeccably proportioned shrine Sugimoto designed in Naoshima Island in Japan, as well as a series entitled Colors of Shadow. Specially commissioned essays by photography curators David Elliot and Kerry Brougher examine Sugimoto's work in depth, while an exhibition history and bibliography round out the volume.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Large scale photographer's work shown in a tiny format January 7, 2008
David G. Scouffas (San Carlos, CA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I first saw this book at the de Young Museum in San Francisco during a major exhibition of Sugimoto's work there during the summer of 2007. I love photography and have been building up a library of photo books for years. Sugimoto is one of my favorite artists and I was really looking forward to having a book of his work (there are so few that have been published that are available). br / br /I think the book is a really good survey of Sugimoto, but I have to say that I was extremely perplexed and disappointed by the decision of the publisher and the artist to publish the work in such a small format. If you've ever seen any of Sugimoto's prints, they are on the order of 4 feet by 5 feet and larger. Their size is important to the presence of the work and highlights the incredible detail that can be captured by a committed artist using very large format cameras. The prints reproduced in the book are just too small to be able to capture any of this impact. br / br /This really drops the rating for me. if it had been twice or three times the dimensions as published it would have just been big enough.
 Sugimoto's Photography July 24, 2007
Chris Kitze (San Francisco, CA USA)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
If you have never seen Sugimoto's work and you have an interest in conceptual art and photography, you are in for a treat. As he says, his work is all about time and what better way to show time than through a photograph. Beautifully produced, this book hints at the depth of the original large format images that can now be seen at a retrospective at San Francisco's de Young museum. br / br /The book begins with his portraits in a wax museum and dioramas from New York's Museum of Natural History. All of his photographs are made with large format camera and the detail is exquisite. Conceptually, the camera gazes upon reproduction figures that are perhaps better than life itself, arranged like sculpture. The meaning of these objects (and places) becomes a recurring theme in his work that ultimately questions the medium itself. Real fiction. br / br /The highlight of the book in my estimation are the minimalist sea landscapes that capture light and question time -- they are devoid of a decisive moment. These images are absolutely spellbinding in person and, for a book, the reproduction is very good. br / br /The weakest part are photographs made by Sugimoto of blurred buildings, which take on a toy like scale, again questioning the reality of the original object. The selection of which building is clearly important, but the execution just isn't as exciting or masterful as the other work in this book. This is a very difficult area and very few photographers have pulled it off (try David Armstrong: All Day Every Day also available at Amazon) br / br /Conceptually, the mathematical models, created in the late 1800's and early 1900's are fascinating. The ultra-resolution of the view camera shows the human hand in creation, where slight imperfections cast shadows of scratches made by the makers, as well as students and teachers. The poetry of pure math meets visual realism. br / br /The finale are the photographs of movie theaters, each image exposed for the duration of the movie. The screen is a brilliant white (hinting at the experience of light from a movie), pouring out into the architecture of the theater or the surroundings of the drive-in landscaping. One of my favorites, from Union City, California, shows traces of light in the sky from passing aircraft -- a Zen-like experience of the passing of time that hints at an ancient haiku about the traces left by geese on snow.
Beautiful, thought-provoking and utterly magical January 8, 2006
Fredrick Johnson
11 out of 16 found this review helpful
I recently discovered Sugimoto's pictures browsing the web. This book is beautifully produced and plate after plate demands not only an aesthetic response from the viewer but also a decidedly intellectual and conceptual one (maybe that's the same thing!). It's rare to find art that is simultaneously so beautiful and so profound.
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