PHOTO:Hiroshi Sugimoto-Theory of Colours
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photographs exemplify both the craftsman’s will to visual beauty and perfection, and an incisive exploration of philosophical notions of space and time, imagination and reality, science and history. Drawing on the classical photographic tradition, Sugimoto creates images which unite the concrete and abstract, and contain conceptual underpinnings which seek to materialize the ‘invisible realm of the mind’ and the unconscious.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Galerie Marian Goodman Archive
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s solo exhibition “Theory of Colours” focus on his new body of work “Opticks” (2018), the series was created by capturing the photographic transcription of colors as revealed when light passes through an optical glass prism. The title of this series is a reference to Sir Isaac Newton’s treatise “Opticks”, published in 1704. Preserved on Polaroid film, the colors of each photograph convey not only Sugimoto’s interest in the most subtle hues of the rainbow but also those colors which embody a transition, which appear to be mixed or hard to define. Sugimoto writes: “Gazing at the bright prismatic light each day, I too had my doubts about Newton’s seven-color spectrum: yes, I could see his red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet scheme, but I could just as easily discern many more different colours in-between, nameless hues of red-to-orange and yellow-to-green”. Sugimoto is not only a reader of Newton, but also of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In his “Treaty of Colours” published in 1810, Goethe described optical phenomena from a more sensitive point of view, prompting Sugimoto to develop a poetical and metaphysical perception of color ‘”with neither Newton’s impassionate arithmetic gaze, nor Goethe’s warm reflexivity, I employed my own photographic devices toward a Middle Way”. Thus, the artist reminds us that in East Asian Buddhist doctrines, the word ‘color’ refers to the materialistic world, while its Japanese transcription both signifies ’emptiness’ and ‘sky’. Sugimoto often works in synergy with arbitrary environmental data making each exposure unique. In his studio in Tokyo, designed as an observational space, Sugimoto uses a device equipped with a prism through which the light passes. When the color spectrum hits a surface at an angle, its continuum can be / Also, there is a screening of “The Garden of Time”, a film produced by the Mori Art Museum and Odawara Art Foundation, featuring renowned dancers Aurélie Dupont and Min Tanaka. The film also features a text by Sugimoto, offering insight into the details behind Odawara’s Enoura Observatory that was established in 2009 in order to foster the advancement of Japanese culture while adopting an international perspective, by producing and promoting theatre, from classical theatre arts to avant-garde stage art. The site of The Enoura Observatory designed by Hiroshi Sugimoto opened to the public and visitors in October 2017.
Photo: Hiroshi Sugimoto, Opticks 228, 2018, Chromogenic print, Image: 47 x 47 in. (119.4 x 119.4 cm), Frame: 60 x 60 in. (152.4 x 152.4 cm), Edition of 1 plus 1 AP, © Hiroshi Sugimoto, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Marian Goodman
Info: Galerie Marian Goodman, 79 rue du Temple, Paris, Duration: 20/3-22/5/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-17:00 (by appointment only book here), www.mariangoodman.com
