Hiroshi Sugimoto

Timetraveller, necromancer, and “Art Anarchist,” Hiroshi Sugimoto makes dreamlike, magical, large-scale photos with long exposures that change our perceptions of the species they represent. His work will make you rethink internal space, both literally and figuratively. And, as he says, his work is an expression of “time exposed.” Sugimoto tells us of his love for tricking his viewers, resurrecting the dead through lighting and exposure, and using photography as a kind of time machine. He traces the history of his lifelong seascape series, dating back to the first moment he became aware of his own consciousness as a child staring at the horizon, and reveals the childhood fear that other people might experience reality completely differently than he did.

TRANSCRIPT:

Tania Ketenjian:
When Hiroshi Sugimoto was a young man, he was slated to take over his father's business. The firstborn son in a Japanese family, Sugimoto could have been a successful businessman, but business did not speak to him. It was far from how he wanted to spend his life. In fact, what captivated him was the fundamental issues many of us grapple with—issues of life and death, of time and history, the ways in which we see the world and how that differs from the ways other people see the world. When Sugimoto was 12, he started using a camera and realized that photographs are like a time machine. A way of documenting and recreating memory. One of his most famous series of works is titled Seascapes, and part of the reason Sugimoto created it was to recapture his very first memory, the sight of the horizon. Sugimoto is a trickster of sorts. He loves to make the viewer think they are seeing something real, and he furthermore loves to play with the notion of what is real. As he says, photography used to be used as a means to gather evidence, but now it can be so manipulated that it hardly tells the truth.

Hiroshi Sugimoto has a large retrospective here in San Francisco at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. He chooses to hang his shows himself, so the exhibition is not only striking in its content but glorious in its context. As you enter the gallery space, you're warned that you're entering a very dimly lit space, virtually black, and you may have trouble seeing the people around you. This allows for a deeper focus on the images, and it further brings to life these pictures that seem to be asking questions about what life is. The first image we see looks much like a painting, as many Sugimoto's works do. But as he said, painting is a much more ancient medium, and has much fewer limitations. Sugimoto loves the challenge of photography and the many contradictions it inspires. This is Sight Unseen. My name is Tania Ketenjian, and I spoke with Hiroshi Sugimoto when he came to San Francisco for his opening. We walked through the exhibition together, and this is part 1 of a 2-part interview. Here, we're speaking about a series of photographs that Sugimoto took at the Natural History Museum in New York City. These are dioramas, and the photographs of dioramas reflect his interest in photography as a time warp. Stay tuned.


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Well, I always dreamed about a time machine. If I had a time machine to go backwards and then seeing this like many thousand years ago, and then I found a method, which is photography. I can use my own photographic method to recreate the ancient time of the scene. Using this museum diorama setting. So this is— but photography, photographic image, people tend to believe that photography was taken there and then probably actually the scene was there. So I'm just using this character of the photography, the nature of photography, the believability of the photographic images. Just shooting this diorama, it's so artificially made, but once it's imaged as a black and white photography, it gives more reality by some reason. So the people tend to— we're just puzzling with people's mind. Many people just don't question themselves. This is a scene, the photo was taken at that time of Neanderthal people. There's no such things, of course, available, but some people just don't question themselves.


Tania Ketenjian:
So it's, I mean, there's two things going on there, and I think that we will see that when we get to the portraits, that notion of that questioning that people have. I think there's something mischievous about you that you like, not so much to trick people, but to engage someone to maybe question.


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
No, no, no, I enjoy tricking people.


Tania Ketenjian:
I won't get you wrong, you enjoy the tricking.


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
It just shows how people, what the tendency of people's, you know, believing something. It's just amazingly so easy to trick people, especially with photography. So some, some, that's depend on the level of intelligence and the knowledge, but even not people's is being enjoyed to being tricked. So yeah, this is part of the nature of photography.


Tania Ketenjian:
But it's such a contradiction to a certain extent about what photography is, because the notion of photography and when it really came to prominence, when, you know, people, just lay people, were being given cameras, it was so exciting to be able to capture that moment, to really be something that's very present. And that's Actually, you're turning that upside down. It's the opposite of that.


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Well, but the situation is changing now. That's digital camera world. You know, you can just change anything you want digitally. Now photography is losing the credibility. Right after the invention of photography, 1839, and then the police department adopted and agreed to use photography as evidence. That was already 1850s. So that's the history of photography. Photography has been known as a proof of evidence, but now police department dropped from the list as evidence because it's so easy to manipulate it and can be changed. So in that sense, I think the history of photography, trustful photography is gone. It's ended.


Tania Ketenjian:
Just that term evidence, and I think the next one we'll go to is the scene that you talked about during the tour. What do you think of that term evidence, or rather, to use another term of evidence, that which is real? What do you think of something— of the idea of the real?


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Idea of the real is it's totally dependent on the person. There's some person it's real, but for some persons it's not real. So I'm just dealing with the seeing that whether all the human, all the individual can be sharing the same vision. This is my very fundamental question from my childhood. I'm just scared whether the other people may be looking at the world totally different way, and I'm only looking at the world the way I can see it. So that's the communication problem. I had some communication problem to begin with. So I was a kind of lonely child that's enjoying just being by myself. I just keep looking at something, just for example, just one spot in the ceiling when I'm in the bed, looking up the ceiling and there's knots of the wood. I just keep looking at them, then my fantasy grows and just keep expanding.

So I was really curious about my vision and reality, whether I can be sharing with other people. Then I encountered when I'm grown up, maybe I can share, you know, the way to express my vision through the photography so that I can show my evidence of reality through the photography. So this is the way I'm looking at the world so that I can show my way of seeing things through my photography. So for example, this is the dioramas with African savanna. With two lions leaving the scene and just killing— just killed the zebra and then finish eating the zebra meat. And then the hyena is just eating after the lions, and then vulture is waiting. And so this is amazingly odd scenes, but, uh, and it's very strange, but this is like the kind of solidness of the world is something is missing. It's just, it's not the painting, but it's a photography, and it's something believable, but something unreal at all. So this is my kind of hallucinogenic vision in some way.

Tania Ketenjian:
Well, you were also, you were saying that one thing that this this piece brings up for you, and it's titled Hyena, Jackal, and Vulture. One thing that this piece brings up for you is just the notion of life and death, and that— either that fine line, or I just wanna explore what that line is for you.


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Well, this is the shot of diorama, and diorama, as you know, it's painted backdrops, with stuffed animals. So they all once lived in this savanna in Africa, but they were captured and unfortunately they killed and then guts taken out and stuffed and then posed for here for permanent stillness. But after I photographing this and then just giving life back so that people tend to believe this as an actual nature photography in the field. But it still remains some kind of ambiguity and strangeness because of this is an impossible situation. If you were there, then you will be targeted. You will be eaten next after zebra. And so this is the scene that this is the viewpoint from the weightlessness guy. It's an invisible point of view. It's an invisible human you turn into. So this is an impossible scene, but still photography as believable. So this probably most of the people— I'm trying to give a kind of questions whether this is believable or not believable. If your eye automatically catches this vision as a live scene, then something wrong with your system. Okay? Your judging system has failed. So you have to investigate your vision first. If you believe this is something live going on, then you have to question yourself, what is death and what is life? What does it mean to you? So it brings back to the fundamental questions.


Tania Ketenjian:
And it brings back to that kind of fundamental question that you would have as a child about how am I seeing, and is this way that I'm seeing, does it make sense? Is it the right way? Do other people see this way? And I think another great tie-in to move from that diorama to these are is just bringing life back. So since I'm speaking with a great man, why don't we stand and talk about another, well, so to speak, great man, Henry VIII. Can you tell me about this piece and, yeah, just talk about it?


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Yes, 1999, I went back to London to photograph the Madame Tussauds Museum, and I was there maybe 3, 4 years Korea to that time, and then I studied how to photograph the wax figures, and then I came back with better idea to photograph the wax figures. So I decided particularly this Henry VIII's six wives. And well, as many people seen this museum, it's kind of touristic spot, so many people go through this attractions. But I studied this original painting of Holbein the Young, the 16th century, and which is the possession of National Portrait Gallery. And I found out, of course, that Madame Tussauds' craftsmen, you know, recreated this figure, wax figures, based on this painting. So my idea is to to make this wax figures make as much possible as similar to the painted portrait. So there's many generations. Originally, the Henry VIII was there posing for the Holbein, and then the Holbein painted his face and figure, and then wax figure, and then my photography, and trying to go goes back to the painterly quality. So many, many layers of imagery going back and forth. So finally I decided my own lighting system and decided to make a small studio within Madame Tussauds after the public hours. I was given from 7 PM to like 6 AM next morning. So I set my studio and then just with the museum's assistant, you know, I can name, please bring Henny VIII's, and then please bring Anne of Cleves next. So that's how I did.


Tania Ketenjian:
Now while you were at Madame Tussauds Museum doing this, were there moments where these wax figures came alive for you? You know, it's nighttime, you're alone in this museum. I mean, it's kind of creepy, you know, it's like— you enjoyed it, yeah. And was there this kind of, at times, confusion between something being real and fake?


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Yeah, that's my issue, fake and real. So it's continued from my diorama series. So I was quite confident to put the life back those once alive but dead and waxed people. So as you can see it, you know, people tend to believe it whether this is actors and actress dressed in historical costume and then just posing to me. So that's the reaction most of the case.


Tania Ketenjian:
And you never felt scared in the museum?


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Well, I was with my assistant and the museum people. So the first night was kind of spooky and very scary, but now I get trained myself. I am in charge of putting your life back, so I have to be a magician. That photography is kind of magic to me.


Tania Ketenjian:
So is it that magic that attracts you to photography, say, over painting? Because my studio mate makes paintings that look similar to your photographs. And the first image that we see when we first walk in looks so much like a painting, as do these. So what is it about painting that you decided not to be a painter? Why a photographer?


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Well, the painting has its own history. It's almost the same as the human's history. When first human aware of himself as, "I'm a human, I'm a conscious, I have a consciousness," Then first things that the people did was to make a paint, like a cave painting, to just judge yourself and you just separate yourself from surrounding. So you are the conscious person to be aware of the outside of the inner world. So history of painting is long and it's— it's interesting, but at the same time, so many things has been done in the painting history. So I think it's more challenge to me to use photography as a medium of my art. And painting, you can fake anything you want. You just— the imagination, you can paint. But I am trying to paint my imagination using my photography. This is more challenging, it's even more difficult.


Tania Ketenjian:
Do you remember around the first photograph you took? Not the first photograph that was in a museum, or the first art photograph, but the first photograph that you took, the first time you realized that, wow, this is allowing me to see how I see?


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Yes, I was 12 years old. And my father bought a very nice Mamiya Camera 6, 2¼, 3¼. It's a 6x9 centimeter. It's a serious format camera. And then my father probably just gave up and then gave it to me. So I took it serious and I just instantly mastered how to use it. And then I even made my own darkroom when I was 12 years old. So since then, I was a photographer.


Tania Ketenjian:
And what did your— I was thinking as we were walking through this exhibition what your parents might have thought of the fact that, you know, what they think of your career, what they think of how— who you've become as an artist.


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Well, they probably never imagined that their son is going I was going to be an artist. My family business is— it's a merchant in wholesale business in pharmaceutical business. So I am the eldest son, so I supposed to be taking over my family business, but I gave it to my younger brother, and probably I wasn't I'm not so good as a businessman probably. So that was the right decision not to take over my father's business.


Tania Ketenjian:
Was it a difficult decision?


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
No, it didn't seem fun to me at all. Business size is fairly large and it's a very, very good business. But just practicing business. And also I was studying economy in Japan, but I took Marxist study instead of practical, practical study. So I became very pessimistic about the commercial world. That's why maybe I decided not to take this business, but more like sociology and philosophy. I was really into it. I was an antique dealer for 10 years during the '80s because I thought, you know, that's I needed some supporting system to my art. So I became an art dealer, and then that's very seriously I get involved, you know. It's just mainly I was focused on the Japanese traditional art and buying it for myself and just trying to sell it to the museums. And then I train my eyes very, very well. So I became an expert of object. Historical object, especially like Buddhist sculptures and Shinto art before 13th century.

So I started to relate my collection to my own art. So now my few project is buying extremely expensive museum quality art object and then combine it myself with my own art, so that I can show it together at the museum setting, so that even though this piece is million dollars of sculpture, I can buy it using my revenue from my art sales, and then I can still say this is my expense, because I'm creating my another level of the art.


Tania Ketenjian:
Very clever.


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
So I'm thinking of making some kind of method, titling it "Art Anarchism." There's no government involvement. This is art create another level of art. So, well, after studying Marx's theory and then maybe Keynes' theory, so many, many interesting theories of how to lead the world through the economy. So I have to create my own financial structure to be able to be freed from this financial disaster in a way.


Tania Ketenjian:
It makes a lot of sense and it's clever too, philosophically speaking, it's very clever. So earlier you had mentioned the invisible viewer because we were looking at the diorama of the hyenas and how it was important impossible for someone to actually be in that image. And here we are faced with what I think is extraordinarily beautifully presented series of seascapes that you took in all different parts of the world. I mean, these are places I've personally— I've heard of the seas, but the places themselves I hadn't heard of. And there's very much an onlooker here. To a certain extent. It might be a spiritual onlooker, but there we could be here. So can you talk about this series a bit?


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Uh, the Seascape series, um, started from 1980. The first seaside with my camera, uh, was being shown here, a Caribbean Sea, Jamaica. And then one And one night I was envisioned again that what if I just take a very minimal, simple scenes of seascapes, and then the horizon line should be exactly in the center, and then half air and half water. And this question came to me, what was the first vision of the first human appeared on the planet Earth, and then probably gaining consciousness himself. So probably this person looking at the sea and naming this scene as the name of the sea. And I was very curious of this supposed first human seeing this seascape. And I start wondering whether I can share this vision with my own vision. So looking at the ground, you know, probably there might be scenes, mountains and fields that the first man maybe seeing it. But we changed around, we changed the ground so, so much, there's no evidence almost to trace back to the ancient people's memory. But maybe the seascapes can be the least changed, so that I maybe shared the same vision with ancient people's vision. So that came to my mind. So I'm just projecting my mind to be seeing like many hundred thousand years ago. The people's mind and mentality and sense of divisions. So to do that, I have to be away from the civilization and try to go to remote places. So the title of the series, you see many, many remote places. And like a Black Sea from the Turkish seacoast and Tasman Sea from Tasmania near Australia. No, Austria, not Australia. The Australian Sea, there's a Bodensee, it's also called Lake Constance. And then I occasionally do freshwater, it's very, very interesting, it's very different character.


Tania Ketenjian:
These are all long exposures, I mean these are all 3, 4 hours? Are they all 3, 4-hour exposures?


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
They are practically very straightforward photography. To capture the waves, you know, I have to be in a very short exposure, 1/60th and 1/20th of a second, most of the case.


Tania Ketenjian:
Except for the lake.


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Except for the one particular one with the The reflection of the sun I photographed, that was like a 3 to 4 hours exposure with very heavy neutral density filter on top of the lens so that I can slow down my film speed to less than ASA 1.


Tania Ketenjian:
And that notion of time again, you know, of going back in time of understanding time. A friend of mine photographed, or actually filmed, the same spot from his deck on the coast of California and observed how the ocean changed over time, over the year. It's just— the ocean is a— I mean, the sea or the ocean or water is a great— it's, it's just, it's endless. I mean, the horizon is endless. It's just all of those ideas coming together here.


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Yeah, this is also the, the sea is the, the source of our life, you know, the life formation started from the, from the water. So the character of this planet Earth is the presence of the water that's guided by some reason the, the formation of the life, organic formation. So it's just all the mystery started from this presence of the water. It's extremely important. Our blood, our liquid inside of our body, it's the same formation of the sea. There's so much salt in our body, and the water, maybe two-thirds of our body is water.


Tania Ketenjian:
Did you grow up by water, would you go to the sea when you were a child?


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Yes, I was born in downtown Tokyo, so there's a Tokyo Bay, but we often go to a weekend for the sea coast. So my memory, childhood memory, I was just tracing back my personal memory. The very first memory was seascapes to me, very clear horizon. I don't know, maybe I was 4 or 5 years old, even before, but trace back my memory, then it leads to this particular scenes of Sharp Horizon. That time I thought, wow, this is beautiful. And then I felt myself, my presence, where I'm born here, and then looking at the seascapes and start wondering who I am. I'm here and there's a father and mother, some other people surround me, and then just surrounded by some other outer world, and then I have my mind, I have my consciousness, and I just myself.


Tania Ketenjian:
So this series, to a certain extent, is emblematic of the first time you realized your own consciousness.


Hiroshi Sugimoto:
This is my own consciousness. This is my trip to be back to my own origin of my consciousness.


Tania Ketenjian:
Those were the words of Hiroshi Sugimoto. Sugimoto currently has an exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, and his work can be seen through September. This is part one of a two-part interview. My name is Tania Ketenjian. This is Sight Unseen. You're listening to 90.7 KALX. In Berkeley.