Sugimoto: Portraits
From March 5 until May 14, 2000 the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin is
presenting Sugimoto: Portraits, a new specially commissioned exhibition for its
gallery on Unter den Linden. Hiroshi Sugimoto, born in Tokyo in 1948, occupies
an exceptional position in the world of photography, combining poetic
imagination and noble elegance with conceptual complexity.
The photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto left his native Japan in 1970 to study art in
Los Angeles at a time when Minimalism and Conceptual Art - both of which
informed his work - reigned. As his practice evolved, Sugimoto came to
conceive of subjects of such conceptual depth that they have merited his
attention throughout his rich career. Inspired by the systemic aspects of Minimal
painting and sculpture, he explores his themes through a rigorous sense of
seriality. Five significant photographic series dominate Sugimoto’s career thus
far: Theaters (begun in 1978), Dioramas and Wax Museums (begun in 1976),
Seascapes (begun in 1980), Sanjusangendo, Hall of Thirty-Three Bays (created
in 1995), and Architecture (begun in 1997).
In his new commission created specially for the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin,
Sugimoto has turned to the wax figures he first explored in his Dioramas series.
Unlike his earlier depictions of dioramic displays found in natural history
museums and tableaux of famous persons in wax museums, these images are
life-size, black-and-white portraits of historical figures, such as Henry VIII,
Elizabeth I, and Voltaire, which are photographed against dramatically-lit, black
backdrops. Working in a scale entirely new to his oeuvre, Sugimoto isolated the
wax effigies from the staged vignettes in Madame Tussaud’s London Waxworks,
posed them in three-quarter length view, and lit them so as to create haunting
Rembrandtesque portraits. His painterly renditions are lush with details and
recall the various painting sources – such as Hans Holbein, Anthony van Dyck,
and Jacques Louis David – from which the wax figures were originally drawn.
Sugimoto rekindles a dialogue that has existed since photography’s invention:
the relationship between painting and the medium of mechanical reproduction.
His five-panel photograph of a wax effigy of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper
shot in a Japanese wax museum spans approximately 25 feet in length and is a
dramatic depiction of its well-recognized source. To photograph a wax tableau of
Johannes Vermeer’s painting The Music Lesson in Madame Tussaud’s
Amsterdam museum, Sugimoto positioned the camera so that his tripod
replaced Vermeer’s easel in the mirror’s reflection. Vermeer, known to use a
camera obscura to paint his domestic scenes with verisimilitude, is here
transformed into a photographer, and Sugimoto, into the painter.
The presentation at the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin emulates the grandeur of
a traditional portrait gallery, thus creating a dialogue with the established
painting galleries found in the city’s classical museums, and adding to the rich
layers of meaning in Sugimoto’s newest work.
Sugimoto: Portraits continues the series of exhibitions commissioned for the
gallery on Unter den Linden. This exhibition follows James Rosenquist's
monumental trilogy of paintings and Andreas Slominski's installations; it is the
first time that this series has focused on photography.
Curators of the exhibition are Nancy Spector, Curator of Contemporary Art, and
Tracey Bashkoff, Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim Museum, New York. A
catalogue designed by Takaaki Matsumoto with reproductions of all the works in
the commission will be on sale in German and English at a price of DM 59. The
book will be available with six different covers and can also be purchased as a
set. Along with an introductory text by Nancy Spector, the publication contains
essays by Carol Armstrong, Norman Bryson and Thomas Kellein, as well as an
interview with the artist by Tracey Bashkoff.
On Sunday, March 5, 2000, at 11.30 a.m., Tracey Bashkoff will be offering a
special guided tour of the exhibition entitled "A Curatorial Eye." On Wednesday
May 10, 2000 at 7.00 p.m., one of the catalogue's contributors, Dr. Thomas
Kellein of the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, will give a talk on "Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Enlightened Atheism."
Inspired by Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Portraits, a black and white replica of the
necklace that belonged to Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII, was
created as Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin's Edition No. 10. Here, the series of
reproductions recalls its starting point: the necklace as it was first recorded in a
painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, then translated into wax at Madame
Tussaud‘s, and transposed by Sugimoto into the form of a black and white
photograph, is now reincarnated as a piece of jewellery to be worn. The
exclusive edition is available from the MuseumShop in a signed and limited
edition of 100 at a price of DM 690.
Press Conference:
Press Information:
Friday, March 3, 2000, 11 a.m.
Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin
Svenja Simon/ Sara Bernshausen
Unter den Linden 13-15
D-10117 Berlin
Tel.
+49-30-202093-14
Fax.
+49-30-202093-20
E-mail: berlin.guggenheim@db.com