Hiroshi Sugimoto
“Water is to me, I confess, a phenomenon which continually awakens new feelings of wonder as often as I view it.”
Michael Faraday
Electricity as art and minimalistic seascapes. Hiroshi Sugimoto, a talented all-round artist covers it all: Photography, architecture, theatre design, garment design (remember the Art Basel Scarfs for Hermes?). All of his works are in a very distinct style, something that whispers the unsaid principles of modern minimalism. I try to limit myself to his works of photography to give a small exerpt of what you can expect. My 2 favourite portfolios are with certainty ‘Seascapes’ and ‘Lightening Fields’. If you are fan of U2 you might recognize the first portfolio from U2’s album cover of ‘No Line on the Horizon’ (2009). All of the seascapes are fascinating.
For his 2009 ‘Lightening Fields’ Sugimoto abandoned the use of the camera and produced photographs using a 400,000 volt Van de Graaff generator to apply an electrical charge directly onto the film. He did not place an object on photo-sensitive paper, then exposing it to light, he rather produced the image by causing electrical sparks to erupt over the on surface of film laid on a large metal tabletop. The remarkably detailed results combine bristling textures and branching sparks into highly evocative images. This is probably my favourite piece of art made by electricity, i cannot stop looking at the clear, random structures. Best, Ea Birkkam
today: perfect white tshirt