Latest Hiroshi Sugimoto Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Population diminishing, even in Japan and Italy, the population is diminishing. When society can reach a sustainable place or gain comfortable income, then people tend to have fewer children. Poverty makes a chain reaction of having many children. So when society reaches some kind of level, then it will turn toward getting a smaller population.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Children, Japan, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• We need to have nature back in our atmosphere. There might be a turning point of going backward - within a few thousand years we are going back to the Stone Age! There are many scenarios [with] the robot technologies: Humans no longer need to walk; machines can produce products and food and everything. You might not be able to recognize what's false and what is real.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Real, Technology, Years

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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

  Civilization, Interesting, Lucky

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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

  Museums, Offering, Australia

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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

  Couple, Years, Records

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I have a strong feeling about this quick movement and changing of society and populations growing - something scary.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Strong, Scary, Feelings

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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

  Thinking, Civilization, Growing

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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

  Years, Civilization, Consciousness

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I want to put it back together now, this artistic expression that contains religious feeling. I want to investigate: What was the origin? What's happened in the human mind? Can we trace back the moment of the creation of human consciousness? And why did only humans gain consciousness, not other animals? So, evolution? I don't know whether or not I can believe evolution. Maybe we wait for another 100,000 years and then apes get consciousness.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Religious, Believe, Animal

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Art and religion have the same origin. Art first, or religion first? Maybe consciousness first! Consciousness always comes with religious feeling and artistic identification. It's the same origin.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Religious, Art, Feelings

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Art always helps religion; it became an inseparable phenomenon when human beings gained consciousness.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Art, Helping, Consciousness

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I have no policy for my collection. For example, there's a bunch of meteorite [on the windowsill in my studio]. I touch it and I feel the energy from the universe. I have a 1/1,000th of a fragment of stone-age tools and pottery and debris. I can learn many things from my collection. Actually, the 1,000 Buddha, I wanted to buy it, but it's a National Treasure, so I couldn't. If you cannot buy it, just photograph it!

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Age, Energy, Example

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• My art has gained some high value.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Art, Values

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Waterlilies always come in Buddhist sculpture. The Buddhas all stand on lotus pedestals, because the lotus is grown from the mud. The mud represents the stained world, a dirty world, but growing from the dirt is such a beautiful, pure thing. This is the way the spirit should be.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Beautiful, Buddhist, Dirty

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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

  Buddhist, California, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• [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

  Spiritual, Thinking, Mind

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• When I saw this Broken Kilometer, it reminded me of these 1,000 Buddhas. That piece is 1,000 one-meter gold rods, and this is 1,000 pieces of gold gilded wooden sculpture. In terms of design, it's up to the space's character.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Character, Space, Broken

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Not any particular religion or school of religion, but being an artist, you have to be spiritual, in a way.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Spiritual, School, Artist

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't love the postmodern statement: "You shouldn't be spiritual if you are the artist."

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Spiritual, Artist, Postmodern

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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

  Christian, Fighting, Buddhism

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• [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

  Buddhist, Ideas, Life And Death

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Life is one passage and then you keep moving into another state.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Moving, Life Is, States

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Life is one passage and then you keep moving into another state. It's like you might be reborn, but the process of being born you won't remember - the same way that the dying process is a slow movement from consciousness to unconsciousness.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Moving, Dying, Movement

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Many people [still] believe that at the time of your death, 1,000 Buddhas show up and welcome you into the paradise state.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Believe, People, Paradise

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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

  Buddhist, Moving, World

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com