Hiroshi Sugimoto | Art21 | Preview from Season 3 of "Art in the Twenty-First Century" (2005)

Central to Hiroshi Sugimoto's work is the idea that photography is a time machine, a method of preserving and picturing memory and time. Sugimoto sees with the eye of the sculptor, painter, architect, and philosopher. He creates images that seem to convey his subjects' essence, whether architectural, sculptural, painterly, or of the natural world.

Hiroshi Sugimoto is featured in the Season 3 episode "Memory" of the Art21 series "Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century".

Learn more about Hiroshi Sugimoto: http://www.art21.org/artists/hiroshi-sugimoto

© 2005-2007 Art21, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[intro music]

This is a very traditional 19th century

painter studio in Paris.

and I'm not using any artificial light here

and all I do is shading up and down

and then I can control the light.

To me, this system, this method still makes the best color picture.

Our, we think we keep making inventions and making tools

as sophisticated as possible. But to me

contemporary people tend to rely on the computer method

and all the machines. That's not good enough.

You need something more than that.

So, this system is very hard to control

but still makes the best pictures.

So, I'm against that kind of evolution, you know,

[laughs] I am sticking to the traditional method.