Hiroshi Sugimoto: Portraits

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Hiroshi Sugimoto

Portraits

Hiroshi Sugimoto

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English

Damiani
01 July 2018

Individual photographers; Photographs: portraits

"At first glance, Hiroshi Sugimoto's photographic portrait of King Henry VIII of England

is arresting: his camera has captured the tactility of Henry's luxurious furs and silks,

the elaborate embroidery of his doublet, and the light reflecting off of each shimmering

jewel. The contours of the king's face are so lifelike that he appears to be almost three- dimensional. It seems as though the twenty-first century artist has traveled back in time

nearly five hundred years to photograph his royal subject. While Sugimoto's portraits

of historical figures appear to capture a lived moment in time, they are fictions. These

portraits are in fact at least twice removed from the subject: his photograph captures a

wax figure that has been created by a sculptor from either a photographic portrait or a

painted one. Sugimoto has photographed his portraits of historical subjects in black and

white, with each ""sitter"" posed against a black background, giving the images an austere

formality. The black backdrop, free of any props or additional visual information,

amplifies the illusion that we are viewing a contemporary portrait in which the subject

has stepped out of history. Other portraits appear to be photojournalistic. Sugimoto's

image of the Duke of Wellington at Napoleon's deathbed is actually a photograph of

the mise en scene created by the wax museum, but it registers as real in our minds.

The portraits of wax figures, which in this volume are presented alongside a handful

of portraits of living subjects and photographs of memento mori, call into question

what it is the portrait captures. As with his other major bodies of work-Dioramas,

Seascapes, Theaters-Sugimoto's Portraits address the passage of time and history.

We recognize these historical figures because of the many contemporaneous drawings,

paintings, sculptures, and photographs that have recorded them. We take it for granted

that a photograph of a living subject is true, but what does that mean? Are Sugimoto's

portraits of living subjects more ""true"" than the historical portraits of wax figures? Is

Hans Holbein's painted portrait of Henry VIII truer than Sugimoto's photograph of the

wax figure made from Holbein's painting?"

By: Hiroshi Sugimoto
Imprint: Damiani
Country of Publication: Italy
Dimensions: Height: 278mm, Width: 252mm,
Weight: 1.140kg
ISBN: 9788862085823
ISBN 10: 8862085826
Pages: 156
Publication Date: 01 July 2018
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Reviews for Hiroshi Sugimoto: Portraits

Hiroshi Sugimoto's Portraits Bring the Dead Back to Life.--Spencer Bokat-Lindell The Paris Review Sugimoto manages to transform these kitschy objects into conceptual art that inspires us to consider the nature of representation.-- PDN's Notable Photo Books of 2018