Architecture (Signed First Edition)

SUGIMOTO, Hiroshi

ISBN 10: 886208658X / ISBN 13: 9788862086585

Published by Damiani and MW Editions, Bologna, Italy & New York, 2019

First edition thus. Hardcover. 158 pages. An expanded edition of the 2003 monograph that features an essay by Sugimoto and along with the original images some new images of "modernist buildings." Includes 90 black and white images. A fine copy in a very near fine dust jacket. Signed by Sugimoto on the front free endpaper with his large florid signature. Seller Inventory # 192454

Synopsis:

The latest in Damiani and MW Editions' Sugimoto project collects his majestic images of classic modernist buildings

In 1997, Hiroshi Sugimoto (born 1948) began a series of photographs of significant works of modernist architecture, intending “to trace the beginnings of our age via architecture.” One of the hallmarks of Sugimoto’s work is his technical mastery of the medium. He makes photographs exclusively with an 8 x 10" view camera, and his silver gelatin prints are renowned for their tonal range, total lack of grain, wealth of detail and overall optical precision. In making the Architecture photographs, however, he inverted his usual process: “Pushing out my old large-format camera’s focal length to twice-infinity ... I discovered that superlative architecture survives the onslaught of blurred photography. Thus I began erosion-testing architecture for durability, completely melting away many of the buildings in the process.”
In this volume, which includes 19 previously unpublished images, the language of architectural modernism is distilled in photographs of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building and Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao. By virtue of their blurriness and lack of color, the images strip down buildings to their essence, what we might imagine was the architect’s first, pure vision of form. The details of construction and imperfections that are a natural result of a massive, collaborative human undertaking are absent, and instead light and shadow define the forms of these buildings. The Architecture photographs continue the artist’s longstanding investigations of the passage of time and history. Are these monuments to human ingenuity and the power of the industrial age as eternal as they seem?

Bibliographic Details

Title: Architecture (Signed First Edition)
Publisher: Damiani and MW Editions, Bologna, Italy & New York
Publication Date: 2019
Binding: Hardcover
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
Signed: Signed by Author(s)
Edition: 1st Edition