Description
“Mystery of mysteries, water and air are right there before us in the sea. Every time I view the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a voyage of seeing.”
—Hiroshi Sugimoto
Time Exposed: Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascapes presents the decade-long project of the well-known photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japanese, b. 1948) for the first time at the Parrish Art Museum. Acquired by the Museum in 2022, the photolithograph series explores Sugimoto’s unwavering interest in the incremental atmospheric changes around vast bodies of water. Beginning in 1980, Sugimoto traveled to remote corners of the world to capture the variable moments where the sky meets the sea—a place of mystery that still intrigues the artist so many years later.
Ranging from 1980 to 1991, the Time Exposed portfolio documents crisp, clean skies to misty, overcast scenes of the Adriatic Sea, Atlantic Ocean, Ionian Sea, Pacific Ocean, and Tasman Sea among others. Highlighting Sugimoto’s technical skill of using a 19th-century black-and-white film camera, the monochromatic scenes depict a quiet stillness that are heightened by the uninterrupted natural landscape. Throughout the decade, Sugimoto photographed the same bodies of water documenting the subtle transformations over the course a day. In some instances, the image taken represents a clear scene with movements of water extraordinarily visible while other depictions signify total gradation where the fog overcomes the entire scene.
