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Hiroshi Sugimoto ORIGINS OF ART
Statement by artist │ Science │ Architecture │ History │ Religion │
Autumn [ Religion ]
The evolution of hominids into today’s humans took several million years, during which time we developed conscious thought and, through that self-awareness, an awareness of time and the inevitability of death. This self-awareness not only garnered humans a special place in the biosphere, but made us consider who or what granted us this privilege. Religious thought has long found expression in art, though as consciousness comes to rely more on rational modes of inquiry that have diluted the world of mystique, our interest in religion has waned commensurately.
Even so, religion, art and science all stem from the same sense of wonder. The five-tiered Esoteric Buddhist gorinto stupa symbolic of the five elements of the cosmos - earth, water, fire, wind and space - manifests a kind of triumvirate of these three holies of holies that may yet reveal glimpses of the eternal and the further reaches of history. A path marker leading us back to a vast unpeopled seascape sealed within a sphere of optical glass.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
1. Thirty Three Seascapes Inlayed Five Layered Chrystal Pagoda, Pagoda 2010, Seascape: Boden Sea, Uttwil, 1993, optical glass, black and white film
2. Bust of Christ, 14th century, wood fragment, Italian, Toscana
3. Caribbean Sea, Jamaica, 1980, gelatin silver print
4. Standing Figure of Jūichimen Kannon (Ekadāsamukha) and Seascapes, Installation view from "Hiroshi Sugimoto: History of History" at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2008-09, Jūichimen Kannon: Heian period (10-11th century), Wood, Seascapes: 1980-1995, gelatin silver print
all images ©Hiroshi Sugimoto / Courtesy of Gallery Koyanagi
reproduction forbidden