Hiroshi Sugimoto on Photography as a Form of Timekeeping
06/12/24 • 74 min
While he may technically practice as a photographer, artist, and architect, Hiroshi Sugimoto could also be considered, from a wider-lens perspective, a chronicler of time. With a body of work now spanning nearly five decades, Sugimoto began making pictures in earnest in 1976 with his ongoing “Diorama” series. In 1980, he started what may be his most widely recognized series, “Seascapes,” composed of Rothko-esque abstractions of the ocean that he has taken at roughly 250 locations around the world. In more recent years, Sugimoto has also built a flourishing architectural practice, designing everything from a café in Tokyo to the currently-under-construction Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. As with his subtly profound work, Sugimoto bears tremendous wisdom and is regarded by many as one of the most deeply perceptive minds and practitioners at the intersection of time and art-making.
On the episode, he discusses his pictures as fossilizations of time; seascapes as the least spoiled places on Earth; and why, for him, the “target of completion” for a building is 5,000 years from now.
Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.
Show notes:
[5:10] Pre-Photography Time-Recording Devices
[39:05] “Theaters”
[15:06] “Seascapes”
[32:31] “Diorama”
[17:16] Caspar David Friedrich
[25:14] Odawara
[28:52] “Aujourd’hui le monde est mort [Lost Human Genetic Archive]”
[44:19] “Abandoned Theaters”
[44:19] “Opera Houses”
[44:19] “Drive-In Theaters”
[49:52] “Architecture”
[51:12] Le Corbusier
[51:12] Mies van der Rohe
[55:30] New Material Research Laboratory
[55:30] Tomoyuki Sakakida
[59:23] Enoura Observatory
[59:23] Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden
[1:00:48] Katsura Imperial Villa
[1:01:05] Bruno Taut
[1:02:14] Donald Judd
[1:02:14] “Hiroshi Sugimoto: Five Elements in Optical Glass”
[1:06:47] Mingei
[1:06:47] Isamu Noguchi
[1:06:47] Dan Flavin
[1:09:15] Sugimoto Bunraku Sonezaki Shinju: The Love Suicides at Sonezaki
[1:09:15] At the Hawk's Well
[1:09:15] W.B. Yeats
While he may technically practice as a photographer, artist, and architect, Hiroshi Sugimoto could also be considered, from a wider-lens perspective, a chronicler of time. With a body of work now spanning nearly five decades, Sugimoto began making pictures in earnest in 1976 with his ongoing “Diorama” series. In 1980, he started what may be his most widely recognized series, “Seascapes,” composed of Rothko-esque abstractions of the ocean that he has taken at roughly 250 locations around the world. In more recent years, Sugimoto has also built a flourishing architectural practice, designing everything from a café in Tokyo to the currently-under-construction Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. As with his subtly profound work, Sugimoto bears tremendous wisdom and is regarded by many as one of the most deeply perceptive minds and practitioners at the intersection of time and art-making.
On the episode, he discusses his pictures as fossilizations of time; seascapes as the least spoiled places on Earth; and why, for him, the “target of completion” for a building is 5,000 years from now.
Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.
Show notes:
[5:10] Pre-Photography Time-Recording Devices
[39:05] “Theaters”
[15:06] “Seascapes”
[32:31] “Diorama”
[17:16] Caspar David Friedrich
[25:14] Odawara
[28:52] “Aujourd’hui le monde est mort [Lost Human Genetic Archive]”
[44:19] “Abandoned Theaters”
[44:19] “Opera Houses”
[44:19] “Drive-In Theaters”
[49:52] “Architecture”
[51:12] Le Corbusier
[51:12] Mies van der Rohe
[55:30] New Material Research Laboratory
[55:30] Tomoyuki Sakakida
[59:23] Enoura Observatory
[59:23] Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden
[1:00:48] Katsura Imperial Villa
[1:01:05] Bruno Taut
[1:02:14] Donald Judd
[1:02:14] “Hiroshi Sugimoto: Five Elements in Optical Glass”
[1:06:47] Mingei
[1:06:47] Isamu Noguchi
[1:06:47] Dan Flavin
[1:09:15] Sugimoto Bunraku Sonezaki Shinju: The Love Suicides at Sonezaki
[1:09:15] At the Hawk's Well
[1:09:15] W.B. Yeats
Previous Episode
Ramdane Touhami on Why He Will Never Slow Down
Soon to celebrate his 50th birthday by journeying from Paris to Tokyo by car along the Southern Silk Road, the French Moroccan creative director, artist, and entrepreneur Ramdane Touhami says he’s “thirsty for life like it’s just the beginning,” and it shows. Among his 17 (yes, 17) companies are the cult grooming brand Officine Universelle Buly 1803, which he and his wife co-founded in 2014 and sold to LVMH in 2021; the Paris-based creative agency Art Recherche Industrie, whose clients include Christofle, Moynat, and Gohar World; and Hotel Drei Berge, which he opened in the Swiss Alps last year. With each of his enterprises, Touhami has proven, time and again, how much craft matters—that there’s a real demand for it in a streamlined world that prioritizes efficiency, and that it’s not necessarily at odds with turning a profit.
On the episode, Touhami talks about the parallels between Japan and Switzerland, business as a religion, and the healing power of mountains.
Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.
Show notes:
[5:29] Hotel Drei Berge Hotel
[5:29] Élisée Reclus
[8:36] Angelo Mangiarotti
[8:36] Tobia Scarpa
[8:36] Dieter Rams
[5:29] “Ramdane Touhami’s Peak Performance”
[17:12] Mos Def
[20:28] Henry David Thoreau
[28:16] Officine Universelle Buly 1803
[28:16] Cire Trudon
[1:00:35] Aman
[27:06] Ignacio Mattos
[28:16] LVMH
[34:54] An Atlas of Natural Beauty
[34:33] Bernard Arnault
[34:54] Izumi Aki
[41:54] Société Helvétique d’Impression Typographique
[43:54] Émile Shahidi
[44:30] Radical Media
[44:59] Tricontinental magazine
[57:24] “A Parisian Designer Builds His Dream House in a Former Brothel”
[1:00:35] Southern Silk Road
Next Episode
Edwina von Gal on Gardening as an Antidote
To the landscape designer Edwina von Gal, gardening is much more than just seeding, planting, weeding, and watering; it’s her life calling. Since starting her namesake firm in 1984 in East Hampton, on New York’s Long Island, she has worked with, for, and/or alongside the likes of Calvin Klein, Larry Gagosian, Frank Gehry, Maya Lin, Annabelle Selldorf, Richard Serra, and Cindy Sherman, creating gardens that center on native species and engage in other nature-based land-care solutions. In 2008, von Gal founded the Azuero Earth Project in Panama to promote chemical-free reforestation with native trees on the Azuero Peninsula. Stemming out of this initiative, in 2013, she then founded the Perfect Earth Project to promote chemical-free, non-agricultural land management in the U.S. Her most recent effort, Two Thirds for the Birds, is a call-to-action to plant more native plants and eliminate pesticides, thus creating a greater food supply for birds.
On the episode, she discusses the meditative qualities of gardening; reframing landscaping as “land care”; and why she sees herself not as a steward of land, but rather as a collaborator with it.
Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.
Show notes:
[15:32] William Cronon
[15:32] Changes in the Land
[15:32] Tiokasin Ghosthorse
[24:04] Carl Sagan
[24:04] The Demon-Haunted World
[26:07] Perfect Earth Project
[40:37] Two Thirds for the Birds
[42:41] John Fitzpatrick
[42:41] Cornell Lab of Ornithology
[42:41] Merlin Bird ID
[47:01] Garden Club of America
[50:21] Diana Vreeland
[51:09] Peter Sharp
[51:09] Channel Gardens at Rockefeller Center
[54:46] Frank Gehry
[54:46] Biomuseo
[54:46] Bruce Mau
[56:32] Azuero Earth Project
[1:00:37] Doug Tallamy
[1:02:01] Nature’s Best Hope
[1:05:12] The High Line
[1:05:12] Brooklyn Bridge Park
[1:05:12] The Battery Conservancy
[1:05:12] Brooklyn Museum
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