1999 Infinity Award: Art

Hiroshi Sugimoto is widely acclaimed as one of the photographic poets of minimalism. His pared-down images of subjects like blank movie screens and open horizons over empty seas are meditations on both vision and the world itself. Sugimoto’s intensely contemplative, immensely subtle work stretches the photographic medium in the direction of philosophy. His work seems both silent and wordless, to exist beyond the realm of mere explanation, and to present the experience of seeing as a powerful and significant act in its own right. His deceptively austere compositions are rendered as sumptuous prints of exquisitely graduated tone and nuance.