Hiroshi
Sugimoto Photographs
of the Schindler House, L.A.
I worked from October, 2011 to March, 2012 on this project, that is about 5 months.
For 8 images. Once a
week. A lot of process.
I had seen Sugimoto exhibition in September, and decided to start
with Sugimoto image of the Schindler house in particular, thinking I would
do more from his book. I soon
found that it was hard to replicate or interpret his blurred photos, but I
had some success with the first (Interior #1), discovering the beautiful effects of the tusche.
I blurred this out for Interior #2, but still kept some of the texture of the first image.
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| House Interior #2 |
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| House interior #1 |
I found a book about the Schindler
House, which turned out to be an iconic modernist building in LA, designed
by Schindler in 1920s as an experiment in modernist construction and in
open living spaces. It was
shared between two families, the Chaces and the Schindlers. Each couple
had two individual studio spaces, and these were also the living spaces.
Cooking and other utility areas were shared between the households.
The exterior garden space was part
of the overall design, with patios outside the studios, complete with
outside fireplaces, sunken garden and landscaping using different kinds of
plants, such as high grasses, hedges and shrubs to provide privacy.
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| House Interior #3 |
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| House Interior #4 |
The second interior image I did was of the Chace studio, also inspired by Sugimoto (Exterior #3). This is looking towards the end of the studio, and the dark square is the interior fireplace. The narrow row of windows above is a feature of the Schindler house. It is termed a clerestory and uses the different heights of the main building and the verandah to add extra light. I worked on this subject for some time, constantly altering the stone, darkening it and changing it, but I like the rawness of this first image.
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| Chace Studio, Schindler House |
I then transferred the images to
the computer, and found that the cropped detail was interesting.
Exterior #4 is a detail
of the Chace studio print. It
is simply two or three strokes of tusche onto the wet stone, resulting in
the flower or explosion motive. Throughout
this project I was learning a great deal about handling tusche.
At this stage I thought that I
would change my overall theme to the interior and exterior nature of
buildings, so I moved away from Sugimoto and worked more from
documentation about the original building.
I constructed a rough model, using the plan and elevation in the
document, because I wanted to get more insight into the construction of
the Schindler House, and working in 3d helped me to do this.
The process remained challenging.
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| House exterior #1 |
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| House exterior #2 |
I made a line drawing (Exterior
#6) to try and summarise the contrasting features of the exterior.
The white adobe-style walls with their characteristics slits (part
windows, part constructional) contrasted with the rectilinear patterning
of the windows and sliding doors. I
then added some tone to this with the liquid tusche to try and give
movement and sense of slanting light.
I thought my prints so far had been too square and I needed some
diagonal movement. I liked the
result (Exterior #7) because it
has a haunted look and reminds us that however rational our design we are
always wrestling with entropy and the unpredictable strength of nature!
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| House Interior #5 |
In another experiment I
overprinted Exterior #6 onto an earlier print, resulting in Interior
#5. I like the tonal qualities of this print, and when I came to
make a final selection I felt it balanced the other prints quite well, so
that is why it is included here.
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| House exterior #3 |
I wanted to explore
the relationship between the garden and the house as well, because the
garden was so important to the original design.
I used the original elevation to give an impression of the reach of
the building and added some tusche to convey a sense of growth and nature
(Exterior #8).
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| House Exterior #4 |
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| Simplified detail print |
Finally, I made a
simplified detail print of one of the exterior prints (see above, right).
The print felt a bit coarse, and I scrubbed some of it and drew wet
on wet to try and get some of the delicate effects of Interior #4.
However, something went wrong during the processing and it became
very dark. I rescued it by
slicing a strip of muslin through it (Exterior
#9), and I think it is rather exciting, and so different from the
other prints and the original concept.
Hiroshi
Sugimoto Lighting
Field photo
However, interestingly enough, it
reminds me of more recent work by Sugimoto.
He photographed electric flashes and exhibited them in large scale.
So, strangely enough, I feel I have followed something of his
processes to obtain this result.
Diana Hand, March 2012
References:
Smith, Kathryn, Schindler
House, New York (2001)
Bonami, Francesca and Chicago
Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshi
Sugimoto, Hatje Cantz (2007)
Hiroshi
Sugimoto exhibition at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 4th
August to 25th September, 2011
