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I'm thinking about the end of civilization. We may not keep growing like we are now. There must be an end of civilization. That's what I did as a show at the Palais de Tokyo, the 33 scenarios of how this civilization ends.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

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Hiroshi Sugimoto
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: February 23
Photographer
Tōkyō
Sugimoto Hiroshi
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May
Tokyo
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More quotes by Hiroshi Sugimoto

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Not any particular religion or school of religion, but being an artist, you have to be spiritual, in a way.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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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
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When I wake up I just make it happen. My dreams come true- that is the artistic practice.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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I don't know how many serious Christians exist here in America, but the Japanese, the younger generation is leaving the Buddhist religion mentality behind.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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[Takashi] Murakami, do you think he is spiritual? He is more like de-spiritualized. De-spiritualized might be the most contemporary aspect of the human mind.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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If I already have a vision, my work is almost done. The rest is a technical problem.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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To me, as a visual artist, I don't want to get into the theory of Buddhism. There are many Buddhism theories and they fight each other, like Christians as well.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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I'm inviting the spirits into my photography. It's an act of God.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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I don't know whether the future or 2018 exists or not, but if it exists, I'm offering a show to a museum in Australia titled Time Reversed. Time is going backwards.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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I feel that I'm in a very interesting position, where I'm standing back to look at this change, at this moment in history of human beings. If the end of the civilization comes before the end of my life, that's lucky! I want to witness how this big story of humans ends.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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People have been reading photography as a true document, at the same time they are now getting suspicious. I am basically an honest person, so I let the camera capture whatever it captures whether you believe it or not is up to you it’s not my responsibility, blame my camera, not me.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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Where do you draw the line as a human being? Written record is only, what, a couple thousand years? And this scientific revolution is less than a hundred years. And computers only a few decades! We've changed so much. It's amazing, the speed of changes.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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I came to California in 1970 and so many people were asking if I was a Buddhist or knew Zen theory, asking if I was enlightened already or not. So I said, Yes, I am enlightened, and then I studied quickly to catch up.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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I have a strong feeling about this quick movement and changing of society and populations growing - something scary.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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[I'm concerned with] aesthetics and this idea of how the passage between life and death goes. I can visually present that by borrowing this Buddhist statue.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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I didn't want to be criticized for taking low-quality photographs, so I tried to reach the best, highest quality of photography and then to combine this with a conceptual art practice. But thinking back, that was the wrong decision [laughs]. Developing a low-quality aesthetic is a sign of serious fine art-I still see this.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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Art always helps religion it became an inseparable phenomenon when human beings gained consciousness.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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The Seascapes are before human beings and after human beings. The Seascapes were there before our presence, and when our civilization is over, seascapes will still exist. Our presence is temporary. Civilization is only 5,000 to 6,000 years. The history of ours, the material history of consciousness, is rather short.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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To me photography functions as a fossilization of time.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
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The Buddhist concept is that it takes 48 days to get near this state [of death]. So it's a slow process, moving into, not a permanent death, but the world of the dead.
Hiroshi Sugimoto