Hiroshi Sugimoto’s minimalist photographic style came to maturity in the period after he moved from Tokyo to Los Angeles in 1970, and then to New York in 1974. Nevertheless, his work has retained a Japanese aesthetic, characterised by a quiet appreciation for simplicity, subtlety and space. Sugimoto’s ‘Seascapes’ (begun in 1980) are bewitching long horizons that melt into the sky and, like his ‘Theaters’ series (begun in 1978), capture the unique atmosphere of time and place, conveying a still, silent quality.

Sugimoto’s works also explore approaches to display in art, architecture and museum environments, and his reverence for the traditional arts of Japan is expressed by capturing one of its most famous sites in Hall of Thirty-Three Bays (nos 1–24) 1995. The photographs comprising this work depict the 1000 Kannon bodhisattva sculptures housed in the Sanjūsangen‑dō temple in Kyoto.1 Completed in 1253, the temple is a powerful example of religious art that remains an important pilgrimage site for Buddhists, as well as one of the most popular temples for tourists visiting Japan.² 

Hall of Thirty-Three Bays incorporates two key strands in Sugimoto’s work. Firstly, his signature photographic style is evident in the contemplative atmosphere and enhanced sense of light and texture, emphasising the soft tones for which the temple is famous. Similar to his seascape horizons, the backgrounds gently fade away, while a sense of place permeates the images, as it does in his works depicting picture theatre and drive-in cinema screens. Secondly, Buddhist imagery is a theme of Sugimoto’s installations and curatorial projects; antique sculptures are presented with the aura and sensibility of his photographs, as the artist finds new ways to expose the intangible presence they embody.

Sugimoto photographed Sanjūsangen-dō at dawn, the time of day when the entire group of Kannon is lit by natural light. The mesmeric effect reflects the devotional aspects of the Kannon themselves. The images sensitively capture the ambience of the temple, with its misty light, dark recesses and soft textures of aged timber suggesting musky aromas. Within this space, the deities glow, a sight the Japanese novelist Jun’ichiro Tanizaki might describe as a ‘dreamlike luminescence’ with a ‘rare tranquillity not found in ordinary light’.³

In keeping with the traditional aesthetics of the late Heian period (794–1185), the sculptures are intended to inspire a sense of unearthly and detached beauty. The bodhisattva take on the different forms required of them as they exemplify the idea of unlimited compassion — thus none of the 1000 figures are identical. Sugimoto’s photographs document the figures’ incremental variations, channelling the experience in which devotees are drawn to apprehend the vast number of Kannon and appreciate their tiny differences. Curator Dana Friis-Hansen has described the experience of viewing Sugimoto’s images:

This repetition is at first hypnotic, even confounding, but it becomes refreshing, revitalizing our vision, forcing us to look closer and harder at the most subtle details not only in these works but in the world around us.⁴ 

Like his seascapes, each similar in composition yet diverse in appearance, Hiroshi Sugimoto seeks ‘to invite contemplation on infinity . . . his photographs are not meant as objects to be regarded, but rather as images of ritual reality to be experienced’.⁵

Endnotes

1. There are 1001 Kannon in the temple, however, one is a central figure not depicted in Sugimoto’s photographs.
2. Rengeō-in (Temple of the Lotus King) was built for the Emperor Go-Shirakawa in 1164. It was destroyed by fire in 1249 and rebuilt as Sanjūsangen-dō, with 156 sculptures surviving from the original building. See Penelope E Mason and Donald Dinwiddie, History of Japanese Art, Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005, pp.154–5.
3. Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, trans. Thomas J Harper and Edward G Seidensticker, Leete’s Island Books, Stony Creek, Conn., 1977 [originally published 1933], pp.21–2.
4. Dana Friis-Hansen, ‘One and another: Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Hall of Thirty-Three Bays’, in Sugimoto [exhibition catalogue], Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, and Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 1996, p.17.
5. Alexandra Munroe, ‘Hiroshi Sugimoto: Ritual reality’, in Beyond the Future: The Third Asia–Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art [exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1999, p.224.