The Sublime in Contemporary Art. Hiroshi Sugimoto's Views of the Invisible

"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

1 Black Sea, Ozuluce, 1991. Gelatin silver print, edition 14/25, 16 5/8 x 21 5/16 inches (42.2 x 54.1 cm) . Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York,Gift, The Bohen Foundation  2001.270. © 1991 Hiroshi Sugimoto

2 Tasman Sea, Ngarupupu, 1990. Gelatin silver print, edition 5/25, 16 9/16 x 21 3/8 inches (42.1 x 54.3 cm) . Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York,Gift, The Bohen Foundation  2001.268. © 1990 Hiroshi Sugimoto 

3 Tyrrhenian Sea, Amalfi, 1990. Gelatin silver print, edition 11/25, 16 1/2 x 21 3/8 inches (41.9 x 54.3 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York,Gift, The Bohen Foundation  2001.269. © 1990 Hiroshi Sugimoto

4 Ligurian Sea, near Saviore,1993.Silver Gelatin Print 182,4 x 154,2 cm © Hiroshi Sugimoto/ courtesy of Gallery Koyanagi . Exhibited in Le temps retrouvé, Collection Lambert, 2011

When I saw these huge gelatin silver prints of Sugimoto's seascapes series for the first time last year at the Collection Lambert during the exhibition Le temps retrouvé I felt literally drawn into Sugimoto's image, lost into a sea of meditation. Since then I read and thought much about his work. I grew really enthusiastic when I learnt that he began working in 1980 on an ongoing series of photographs of the sea and its horizon, Seascapes, in locations all over the world. The black-and-white pictures are all exactly the same size, bifurcated exactly in half by the horizon line. How can he drive the viewer to want always to look closer at his seas of "time exposed"?  His use of an 8×10 large-format camera and extremely long exposures  up to three hours enables him to explore both physical and spiritual boundary as well as  the phenomenology of the picture plane.  

While deeply metaphysical and existential these photographs are a meditation on photography itself.

GALERIE MARIAN GOODMAN

79 RUE DU TEMPLE

75003 PARIS

Gagosian Gallery New York

Hiroshi Sugimoto, self-portrait 2003

Le temps retrouvé. Cy Twombly's Revelation

"Sometimes when I am writing the date on a letter, I have to ask what year it is."

Cy Twombly

1 Cy Twombly,The artist's shoes, 2002 Dryprint on cardboard , 43,1 x 27,9 cm © Schirmer/Mosel Verlag - Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

2 Cy Twombly, brushes, 2005

3 Cy Twombly, peonies, 2005

Remembrances of Twombly. Twombly died just a year ago the 5th of July 2011. Through his photographer's eye... His snapshots taken with an instant camera appear as an epiphany of time passing by, a desire to capture eternity. Twombly began taking pictures in the Fifties when he was still a student and never ceased doing it. His very first pictures were taken at Tetouan in 1951. A series in black and white; the edge of a table, an empty chair; the pictures reveal the passing of time. No human presence, only light and absence.

Last exhibitions:

Cy Twombly, Photographs 1951-2010. Bruxelles, ßozar (1 février-29 avril 2012)

Le temps retrouvé, Collection Lambert,Avignon (12 juin-20 novembre 2011)

"Le temps retrouvé" de Cy twombly

1&2 Twombly's home at Gaeta photographed by Horst in 1966 for Vogue. Click here to see more of this, Mondo-blogo.

3,4&5 Cy Twombly: A Painted Word by Dodie Kazanjian photographed by Bruce Weber for Vogue, at Gaeta, 2001. Click here for more, Vogue, archives.

6 Cy Twombly The Artist's Shoes © Schirmer/Mosel Verlag - Nicola Del Roscio Foundation. For more information on Twombly's polaroïds, you may read Philippe Dewolf's article.

Lost in time. A shared fixation about the passing of time inspired English visual artist Tacita Dean to make a filmed portrait of Cy Twombly. Twombly has made the ancient world of the Mediterranean his own. He used to say that he has no sense of time. "Sometimes when I am writing the date on a letter, I have to ask what year it is." After Le temps retrouvé, the deeply moving exhibition giving a carte blanche to Cy twombly  and organized by the Collection Lambert en Avignon last summer, there is still a chance to see Twombly's photographs and to discover Tacita Dean's film at Bruxelles. 

Cy Twombly, Photographs 1951-2010. Bruxelles, Bozar, jusqu’au 29 avril 2012.