Hiroshi Sugimoto - Photographs New York Wednesday, April 6, 2022 | Phillips
  • "One night I had an idea while I was at the movies: to photograph the film itself. I tried to imagine photographing an entire feature film with my camera. I could already picture the projection screen making itself visible as a white rectangle. In my imagination, this would appear as a glowing, white rectangle; it would come forward from the projection surface and illuminate the entire theater. This idea struck me as being very interesting, mysterious, and even religious."
    —Hiroshi Sugimoto

    • Provenance

      Private Collection, Japan
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Sugimoto, Sonnabend Gallery, New York; Sagacho Exhibit Space, Tokyo; Zeito Photo Salon, Tokyo, 11 June – 22 October 1988
      Hiroshi Sugimoto, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., 17 September 2005 – 14 May 2006
      Energy: The Power of Art, Nassau County Museum of Art, New York, 20 July 2019 – 3 November 2020

    • Literature

      Damiani and Matsumoto Editions, Hiroshi Sugimoto: Theaters, pp. 22, 172
      Sonnabend Gallery, Sugimoto, n.p.
      Sonnabend Sundell Editions, THEATERS HIROSHI SUGIMOTO, pp. 38-39, 222
      Mori Art Museum and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Hiroshi Sugimoto, p. 91, 359 (this print)

    • Artist Biography

      Hiroshi Sugimoto

      Japanese • 1948

      Hiroshi Sugimoto's work examines the concepts of time, space and the metaphysics of human existence through breathtakingly perfect images of theaters, mathematical forms, wax figures and seascapes. His 8 x 10 inch, large-format camera and long exposures give an almost eerie serenity to his images, treating the photograph as an ethereal time capsule and challenging its associations of the 'instant.' 

      In his famed Seascapes, Sugimoto sublimely captures the nature of water and air, sharpening and blurring the elements together into a seamless, formless entity.  This reflection of the human condition and its relationship with time follows through his exploration of historical topics and timeless beauty as he uniquely replicates the world around us.

      View More Works

103

Prospect Park Theater, New York

1977
Gelatin silver print.
16 1/2 x 21 1/4 in. (41.9 x 54 cm)
Signed in pencil on the mount; blindstamp title, date and number '15/25, 214' in the margin.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$15,000 - 25,000 

Sold for $17,640

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs
skrueger@phillips.com


Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Chairwoman, Americas
vhallett@phillips.com

Photographs

New York Auction 6 April 2022