[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 SugimotoMany people [still] believe that at the time of your death, 1,000 Buddhas show up and welcome you into the paradise state.
Hiroshi SugimotoIf I already have a vision, my work is almost done. The rest is a technical problem.
Hiroshi SugimotoI 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 SugimotoWhere 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 SugimotoWhen people call me a photographer, I always feel like something of a charlatanโat least in Japanese. The word shashin, for photograph, combines the characters sha, meaning to reflect or copy, and shin, meaning truth, hence the photographer seems to entertain grand delusions of portraying truth.
Hiroshi Sugimoto