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Hiroshi Sugimoto

Conceptual Forms

April 7–May 28, 2005
Britannia Street, London

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Conceptual Forms Gallery installation view

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Conceptual Forms

Gallery installation view

Works Exhibited

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Helicoid: Minimal Surface, 2004 Gelatin silver print, 59 × 47 ¼ inches (150 × 120 cm), edition of 5

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Helicoid: Minimal Surface, 2004

Gelatin silver print, 59 × 47 ¼ inches (150 × 120 cm), edition of 5

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Diagonal Clebsch surface, cubic with 27 lines, 2004 Gelatin silver print, 59 × 47 ¼ inches (150 × 120 cm), edition of 5

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Diagonal Clebsch surface, cubic with 27 lines, 2004

Gelatin silver print, 59 × 47 ¼ inches (150 × 120 cm), edition of 5

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Triangular cam, 2004 Gelatin silver print, 59 × 47 ¼ inches (150 × 120 cm), edition of 5

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Triangular cam, 2004

Gelatin silver print, 59 × 47 ¼ inches (150 × 120 cm), edition of 5

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Internal gear, 2004 Gelatin silver print, 59 × 47 ¼ inches (150 × 120 cm), edition of 5

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Internal gear, 2004

Gelatin silver print, 59 × 47 ¼ inches (150 × 120 cm), edition of 5

About

"These machines and models were created without any artistic intention. This is what motivated me to produce this series of photographs and title them 'Conceptual Forms.' Art is possible without artistic intention and can be better without It. "
– Hiroshi Sugimoto

Gagosian Gallery, London is pleased to present Hiroshi Sugimoto's new series entitled "Conceptual Forms." The exhibition features a selection of twenty-four large-scale black and white photographs of mathematical models, as well as mechanical machine tools.

The Mathematical forms - stereometric models in plaster – were created in the 19th century to provide students with a visual understanding of complex trigonometric functions. The Mechanical forms – machine models including gears, pumps and regulators - are industrial tools used to demonstrate basic movements of modern machinery.

Sugimoto began working on this series as a response to "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass)" by Marcel Duchamp. In Sugimoto's photographs, the fluid curvilinear forms of the mathematical models (those objects reminiscent of the "Bride") and the rigid, sharply delineated forms of the mechanical models (those mechanics associated with the "Bachelors") become abstract sculpture, blurring the line between science and knowledge, and their relationship to art.

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