Hiroshi Sugimoto’s exhibition at the Hayward Gallery was not on my list of current exhibitions to visit, although it probably should have been. A friend who couldn’t make it gave me her ticket and I am grateful otherwise I might have missed it. Not because I loved it, as such (too photo-centric for that). But it did make me think. Maybe thought is better than love in this instance. I’d seen the images of strange spectral cinema screens Sugimoto is so famous for in plenty of photography books during my years of study. I return often to James Elkins’ writing on photography, even though I wasn’t keen on that when I first read it. Of Sugimoto, he writes, ‘[He] explore[s] a nearly static and silent postmodern sublime, one that has been smoothed and quieted until it is nearly inaudible” and “The sublime is a pitch-perfect concept for academic art criticism: it has intellectual glamour, it is notoriously difficult, it comes packaged in a treacherous and complex history, it is both frighteningly austere and impossibly dreamy” (2007, p 78 & 77).
Being that Sugimoto is inherently linked to the sublime, and yes, many of his images are austere and difficult, it might seem strange that the first one I looked at upon entering the Hayward Gallery struck me as intensely relevant to Now and the recent explosion of AI-generated pictures; what that medium means for art, representation and the image itself. I say strange, as AI images are mostly deemed ultra-kitsch and as far from the sublime as one can get. Nevertheless, some of the most amusing, interesting and/or striking AI images I’ve seen obviously play with time and space, just as Sugimoto does. For instance, a sepia-toned image of two Victorian-looking men standing beside a giant skull which they may have just excavated and as tall as the men themselves in an issue of Midjourney Magazine gives much the same impression as Sugimoto’s photograph of a couple of ape-like humanoid creatures strolling in the snow as if they were courting teens wandering through Central Park. The method of making is different, sure. And I do not underestimate the levels of investment in terms of time and cash it takes to become a skilled photographer. But is the impulse and end result so very far apart?
Artificially generated images are not typically associated with the sublime. On the contrary, and unlike Sugimoto’s, they are often ridiculed, dismissed and despised. AI images are considered anti-nature, ersatz, kitsch, and irrevocably entangled in a bad way with the capitalist machine (even when they are being used to interrogate aspects of said machine). And even though kitsch has been playfully and satirically embraced by artists since at least Andy Warhol days, digital work in the main, never mind AI, does not get the credit or attention it might. I’ll requote a sentence I recently put on Threads from an article about an exhibition called Difference Machines: Technology and Identity in Contemporary Art (which would definitely be on my list of shows to see if it were in London): “These artworks demonstrate that artists who work with digital technologies have long considered the complex relationship between technology and difference. Unfortunately, as is true across contemporary art, these artists often have not been valued beyond their communities, due to the systemic biases of institutions including museums and galleries.” Do take a read. There’s some terrific work worth knowing about included.
Sugimoto is steeped in photography theory and it is steeped in him. Early in his career, he was enthralled by the dioramas he saw in museums (dioramas incidentally were a precursor to photography and produced by Daguerre before he went on to invent daguerreotypes). For some, it seems he is photography-porn. He is revered for clever camera skills and, as Charlotte Jansen implies in her Guardian review (2023), this show will appeal greatly to the #filmsnotdead and #alternativephotography brigades. She ends by saying, “It’s an incisive and clear presentation of Sugimoto’s work of the past five decades and a true reflection of an artist with an unfaltering devotion to his method and ideas of how to use the medium of photography… ”
Knowing how the photography purists idolise these methods and ideas, I was struck by the waxwork images in particular. These are large portraits of Madame Tussauds’ models which, in some but not all, often look very convincing. So much so, that one might be fooled into thinking they are ‘real’ portraits. Sugimoto’s diorama images play the same trick. But when you’re dealing with photographic images, what is real? Certainly not the ideal image created by advertisers using a blend of photography and digital manipulation to sell the latest car/sofa/boot/lifestyle. Where does real begin and end? Why does the artist who copies a copy of a copy garner so much adoration while those creating images using the ultimate copying machine attract so much vitriol? (See screenshot below?) Sugimoto copies a waxwork made by non-attributed artists, which they would have made referencing other artists – photographers and painters – who may well have created their work using copies too. So, what is it that we are looking at when we view these images? What is it about them that renders them so valuable? It surely isn’t merely Sugimoto’s ability to choose the best f-stop and lighting set-up, which anyone can learn if they put their mind to it and have access to equipment and space, not to mention time. Perhaps that’s the least of it (although many might disagree with me). Is it just because they’re part of a famous photographer’s body of work? The more gruesome images in the basement probably get a showing for just that reason as I’m not sure what those added – and I was glad to see critics say the same. The waxworks, however, seem weighty and relevant. Whatever one may think about these questions, I think it behoves us to consider any answers carefully and critically as we contemplate what it is about images that we value and why. And to consider our habit of dismissing this medium or that one while fetishising and romanticising another.
Just as photography had to wait so long to be taken seriously, it may be a while before the Hayward has a retrospective which includes a bank of portraits made using AI technology, although they may of course get hold of Philip Toledano’s Another America, a subject so suited to the medium.
I’m glad I went to the Hayward. To be able to trace a link between the austere and academically difficult sublime and the gauche kitschiness of AI is extremely useful for me. And incidentally, I’m still reading about ‘kitsch and art’ and looking forward to writing about my findings soon. At some point, I will get around to writing about light-fetish and Western culture too, as promised a few blogs back, and Hiroshi Sugimoto will no doubt make an appearance there.
Refs:
Bowditch, A. and Wrightwood 659 (2023) “Difference Machines: Technology and Identity in Contemporary Art” Opens at Wrightwood 659. At: http://hyperallergic.com/850207/difference-machines-technology-and-identity-in-contemporary-art-wrightwood-659/ (Accessed 16/10/2023).
Elkins, J. (2011) What photography is. New York: Routledge.
Sugimoto, H. (1994) Earliest Human Relatives Diorama — Hiroshi Sugimoto. At: https://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/new-page-54 (Accessed 16/10/2023).
Hiroshi Sugimoto (2023) At: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/art-exhibitions/hiroshi-sugimoto (Accessed 16/10/2023).
Jansen, C. (2023) ‘Hiroshi Sugimoto review – Japan’s great faker brings the dead back to disturbing life’ In: The Guardian 10/10/2023 At: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/10/hiroshi-sugimoto-review-japan-great-faker-hayward (Accessed 16/10/2023).
Toledano, P. (2023) Phillip Toledano. [Artist’s website] At: https://mrtoledano.com/ (Accessed 16/10/2023).