As a photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto creates artworks that start off as visions from his imagination. His celebrated "Seascapes" series, for example, which features oceans and skies devoid of all traces of human activity, began with the notion of a vista that could be viewed today in the same way that it would have been viewed millennia ago.
However, calling Sugimoto a "photographer" is rather like describing Leonardo da Vinci as a "draftsman." Though his photographs routinely reach seven-digit dollar figures at auction the world over — and he will have major retrospectives at the National Gallery of Scotland and the Chinati Foundation, Texas, later this year — his activities now stretch to architecture and antique collecting. Most recently, he has been focusing his energy on productions of traditional Japanese performing arts, such as noh and bunraku. A performance of the latter will be held later this month to launch the brand new Kanagawa Arts Theatre (KAAT), and, like his photography, it is a work that began with a vision.
"My approach to traditional theater is that it needs to keep the spirit of the original; but, because I'm a contemporary artist, it needs to be presented in a contemporary way," he explained in an interview at a Tokyo gallery last week.