dc.description.abstract | Hiroshi Sugimoto was famous for his contemporary conceptual photography in the West and Japan in the 20th century. For many decades, he has also been a multi-disciplinary artist working as an antiquarian, architect, and so on. These roles deepen his exploration in Japanese culture, broaden his thoughts on photography and led to his photography being commented as contemporary photography which blends eastern and western philosophies. Many studies about Hiroshi Sugimoto discuss on the single cultural perspective. Therefore, this thesis attempts to discuss the influence of Japanese and western ideologies on Hiroshi Sugimoto and his photography. Also, extending from Hasselblad foundation’s award citation, this study focuses on the multilayered concept of time in his photography, and explores how he thinks of humankind’s memory and history, and how his photography reinterprets the meaning of photographic history, the origin of photography. Then I consider the history of theater, the history of architecture, and the context of iconology, to probe into other possibilities of interpretation.
This thesis begins with Sugimoto’s thoughts on time and two photographic series “Theaters” and “Architecture” which have the same subject of historical space. I explore Sugimoto’s thinking and the multilayered concept of time in his photography. In the first chapter, I discuss the formation of his photographic techniques and styles, and his way of thinking on eastern and western culture in conceptual photography. The second chapter focuses on his “Theaters series”, and his notion of photography as recovery. I examine how he blends the Japanese pantheism, Japanese literature, temporality of Noh theatre into his photography, and has dialogues with the history of theatre, Bernd and Hilla Becher’s typologies and Marey’s chronophotography of the 19th century. Then I study his "Abandoned Theater" series, which he created after 40 years, and discuss how he transforms the metaphysical concept of recovery to specific photographic process. The third chapter focusses on the “Architecture” series, starting from the theme of modern architecture, to see how he integrates his role as an architect into photography. I also explore his gaze through out-of-focus architectural images, and how he connects to his works with the contexts outside the photographic history, such as iconology, memory, and history. Through an analysis of “Theaters” and “Architecture” series, this thesis unveils abundant layers of time and space in Hiroshi Sugimoto’ s photography, and his reinterpretation of architecture photography by his conceptual photography. | en_US |