Hiroshi Sugimoto Quotes
-
Fossils work almost the same way as photography as a record of history. The accumulation of time and history becomes a negative of the image. And this negative comes off, and the fossil is the positive side. This is the same as the action of photography.
→ -
To me, as a visual artist, I don't want to get into the theory of Buddhism. There are many Buddhism theories and they fight each other, like Christians as well.
→ -
Art is technique: a means by which to materialize the invisible realm of the mind.
→ -
I'm thinking about the end of civilization. We may not keep growing like we are now. There must be an end of civilization. That's what I did as a show at the Palais de Tokyo, the 33 scenarios of how this civilization ends.
→ -
Many people [still] believe that at the time of your death, 1,000 Buddhas show up and welcome you into the paradise state.
→ -
One night I had an idea while I was at the movies: to photograph the film itself. I tried to imagine photographing an entire feature film with my camera. I could already picture the projection screen making itself visible as a white rectangle. In my imagination, this would appear as a glowing, white rectangle; it would come forward from the projection surface and illuminate the entire theater. This idea struck me as being very interesting, mysterious, and even religious.
→ -
I didn't want to be criticized for taking low-quality photographs, so I tried to reach the best, highest quality of photography and then to combine this with a conceptual art practice. But thinking back, that was the wrong decision [laughs]. Developing a low-quality aesthetic is a sign of serious fine art-I still see this.
→ -
Population diminishing, even in Japan and Italy, the population is diminishing. When society can reach a sustainable place or gain comfortable income, then people tend to have fewer children. Poverty makes a chain reaction of having many children. So when society reaches some kind of level, then it will turn toward getting a smaller population.
→ -
My concept was, within the five-minute video, for people to see one million Buddhas. So I made a group of the images and it keeps accelerating to reach this one million point. The movie was invented from the still photos.
→ -
[Takashi] Murakami, do you think he is spiritual? He is more like de-spiritualized. De-spiritualized might be the most contemporary aspect of the human mind.
→ -
All over the planet, nature is being transformed into 'un-nature' at breakneck speed...My life is part of natural history. I long to know where that history came from and where it is going.
→ -
Photography is like a found object. A photographer never makes an actual subject; they just steal the image from the world... Photography is a system of saving memories. It's a time machine, in a way, to preserve the memory, to preserve time.
→ -
I don't know whether the future or 2018 exists or not, but if it exists, I'm offering a show to a museum in Australia titled "Time Reversed." Time is going backwards.
→ -
It's pre-photography, a fossilization of time, Americans have done the Zen garden to death. I wanted to do something different.
→ -
We need to have nature back in our atmosphere. There might be a turning point of going backward - within a few thousand years we are going back to the Stone Age! There are many scenarios [with] the robot technologies: Humans no longer need to walk; machines can produce products and food and everything. You might not be able to recognize what's false and what is real.
→ -
I want to put it back together now, this artistic expression that contains religious feeling. I want to investigate: What was the origin? What's happened in the human mind? Can we trace back the moment of the creation of human consciousness? And why did only humans gain consciousness, not other animals? So, evolution? I don't know whether or not I can believe evolution. Maybe we wait for another 100,000 years and then apes get consciousness.
→ -
The 1,000 Buddha, to me, is almost like a contemporary art piece.
→ -
Life is one passage and then you keep moving into another state. It's like you might be reborn, but the process of being born you won't remember - the same way that the dying process is a slow movement from consciousness to unconsciousness.
→ -
When people call me a photographer, I always feel like something of a charlatan—at least in Japanese. The word shashin, for photograph, combines the characters sha, meaning to reflect or copy, and shin, meaning truth, hence the photographer seems to entertain grand delusions of portraying truth.
→ -
Humans have changed the landscape so much, but images of the sea could be shared with primordial people. I just project my imagination on to the viewer, even the first human being. I think first and then imagine some scenes. Then I go out and look for them. Or I re-create these images with my camera. I love photography because photography is the most believable medium. Painting can lie, but photography never lies: that is what people used to believe.
→ -
The Buddhist concept is that it takes 48 days to get near this state [of death]. So it's a slow process, moving into, not a permanent death, but the world of the dead.
→ -
Not any particular religion or school of religion, but being an artist, you have to be spiritual, in a way.
→ -
I don't love the postmodern statement: "You shouldn't be spiritual if you are the artist."
→ -
When I saw this Broken Kilometer, it reminded me of these 1,000 Buddhas. That piece is 1,000 one-meter gold rods, and this is 1,000 pieces of gold gilded wooden sculpture. In terms of design, it's up to the space's character.
→ -
I'm inviting the spirits into my photography. It's an act of God.
→ -
Art and religion have the same origin. Art first, or religion first? Maybe consciousness first! Consciousness always comes with religious feeling and artistic identification. It's the same origin.
→ -
To me photography functions as a fossilization of time.
→ -
If I already have a vision, my work is almost done. The rest is a technical problem.
→ -
When I wake up I just make it happen. My dreams come true- that is the artistic practice.
→ -
[I'm concerned with] aesthetics and this idea of how the passage between life and death goes. I can visually present that by borrowing this Buddhist statue.
→
Related Authors
-
William Eggleston Photographer -
Michael Kenna Photographer -
Rinko Kawauchi Photographer -
Cindy Sherman Photographer -
Thomas Struth Photographer -
Jonathan Safran Foer Writer -
Bernd Becher Conceptual Artist -
Nan Goldin Photographer -
Wolfgang Tillmans Photographer -
Candida Hofer Photographer -
Lee Friedlander Photographer -
Diane Arbus Photographer -
Auguste Rodin Sculptor -
Stephen Shore Photographer -
Nobuyoshi Araki Photographer -
Shomei Tomatsu Photographer -
Andreas Gursky Photographer -
Thomas Ruff Photographer -
Tadao Ando Architect -
Jeff Wall Artist