A New Hiroshi Sugimoto Sculpture in San Francisco Reaches for In?nity

一個新的杉本博司雕塑在舊金山達到無限

His sliver of an artwork, “Point of Infinity,” marks the start of the city’s Treasure Island Art Program.

他的作品《無限之點》標志著這座城市金銀島藝術計劃的開始

By Jori Finkel

作者：約里·豐克爾

Reporting from San Francisco

舊金山報道

June 9, 2023

2023年6月9日

      The San Francisco skyline has radically changed over the past two decades because of all the real estate development. It’s changing again now, but subtly, because of an artwork. The Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, famous for his slyly deceptive photography, has just planted a slender, 69-foot-tall stainless steel sculpture on a hilltop in Yerba Buena Island, meant to serve as an anchor — or beacon, given its height — for the area’s new public art program.

     由于房地產開發(fā)，舊金山的天際線在過去二十年里發(fā)生了根本性的變化。現(xiàn)在，它又在發(fā)生變化，但微妙地是因為一件藝術品。日本藝術家杉本博以其狡猾的欺騙性攝影而聞名，他剛剛在芳草地島的山頂上種植了一個細長的、69英尺高的不銹鋼雕塑，考慮到它的高度，它的目的是作為該地區(qū)新公共藝術項目的錨或者燈塔了。

      From some viewpoints it looks like the tip of a sewing needle poking out above the trees and cellular towers of this island in the San Francisco Bay. From others it seems an elegant high-tech cousin of the Transamerica Pyramid, the chunkier building across the bay. Because of its particular curved geometry, which tapers from a concrete base of 23 feet to a top that is less than one inch in diameter, the sculpture looks as if it’s growing infinitely smaller and taller as it reaches for Earth’s outer atmosphere.

     從某些角度看，它就像一根針尖從圣朗西斯科灣島上的樹木和蜂窩塔上伸出來。從另一些人的角度來看，它似乎是橫海灣的泛美金字塔的優(yōu)難的高科技表兄弟。因為它特殊的彎曲幾何形狀，從23英尺的混凝土基座逐漸變細，頂部直徑不到一英寸，這個雕塑看起來好像越來越小，越來越高，因為它到達了地球的外層大氣層。
      The artist paradoxically calls his skyscraper 揚oint of Infinity,? and, even more than the beautiful sliver of mirror-finished stainless steel itself, he hopes to showcase that Zen koan-like notion. “The infinity point, where two curved lines are supposed to meet, only exists in the human mind; it’s a creation of human consciousness,” said Sugimoto, 75, who called the sculpture “beyond expectation” on Monday during his first visit to it on site. “I wished to make it reach all the way to infinity, but that’s technically impossible,” he added, laughing at himself, his habit even or especially when making gnomic pronouncements.這位藝術家自         相矛盾地稱他的摩天大樓為“無限點”，甚至比鏡面拋光的不銹鋼本身更美麗，他希望展示禪宗公證般的概念。75歲的杉本說:“兩條曲線交匯的無限大點只存在于人類的思想中:它是人類意識的產物。"周一，他剛開始到現(xiàn)場參觀這座雕塑時，稱它“出乎意料”?！拔蚁Ｍ芤恢毖由斓綗o限大，但從技術上講，這是不可能的，”他補道，一邊自嘲，甚至一邊嘲笑自己的習慣，尤其是在發(fā)表格言的時候.

      杉本博司，外文名Hiroshi Sugimoto，日本人，出生在東京，從小接受西方油畫的藝術教育，在美國留學畢業(yè)，經過學習研究，成為知名攝影師，藝術家，被譽為「z后的現(xiàn)代主義者」。

      他的創(chuàng)作將東西方史學、哲學和美學帶入攝影，并將攝影作品提升至藝術品層次。除攝影創(chuàng)作，他還經手室內設計、能劇舞臺、神社等建筑工作。

      The sculpture also serves a more practical or political purpose, marking Yerba Buena Island and the adjoining Treasure Island, a naval base from 1942 to 1997, as a new cultural destination. With a budget of $2 million, 揚oint of Infinity? is the first major artwork developed under the Treasure Island Art Program, run by the San Francisco Arts Commission and funded by a 搊ne percent? program, which takes a cut of construction costs from new development on the islands.

      這座雕塑還有一個更實際或者更政治的目的，標志著芳草地島和毗鄰的金銀島（1942年至1997年間的海軍基地）成為一個新的文化目的地。“無限點”的預算為200萬美元，是金銀島藝術計劃下創(chuàng)作的重要藝術品。該計劃由舊金山藝術委員會運營，由“1%”計劃資助，該計劃從島上

      The Treasure Island Development Authority plans to create 8,000 housing units, with 27 percent of them to be deemed affordable. Roughly 75 percent of the 400-acre site is designated as public space, making it “the city’s biggest allotment of public, open space since the creation of Golden Gate Park,” said Jill Manton, who directs the Treasure Island Art Program, describing parks, walkways and plazas where they can site public art.

      金銀島發(fā)展局計劃建造8000套住房，其中27%被視為經濟適用房。金銀島藝術計劃的負責人吉爾·曼頓說，在這個400英畝的場地中，大約有75%被指定為公共空間，這使它成為“金門公園建成以來，紐約市頭等公共開放空間”。她描述了可以放置公共藝術的公園、人行道和廣場。

      She said the program’s overall budget for art could exceed $50 million “if everything progresses as planned” but acknowledged volatility in the real estate market. The three developers involved in the project also recently sued each other.

      她說，“如果一切按計劃進行”，金銀島藝術項目的總預算可能會超過5000萬美元，但她也承認房地產市場存在波動。參與該項目的三家開發(fā)商z近還互相起訴。

      The art planning process has not been smooth either. Sugimoto’s work on the project began in 2017 after the city issued an open call for artists. By the end of that year, he was selected by a committee as one of seven finalists (out of a pool of 495 applicants) to develop proposals for three sites. Two finalists, Pae White and Antony Gormley, also made it to the next stage and revamped their plans, only to have them nixed in the end, Manton said, 搊ver aesthetic concerns.” She recently enlisted Kehinde Wiley instead to submit a proposal for one of those sites, a major waterfront plaza.

     杉本博的新雕塑在舊金山延伸到無限-紐約時報藝術策劃過程也不順利。杉本在這個項目上的工作始于2017年，當時該市公開征集藝術家。到那一年年底，他被一個委員會選為七名決選手一（(從495名申請者中)，為三個地點制定方案，兩名決賽選手，佩伊·懷特和安東尼·戈姆利，也進入了下一階段，并修改了他們的計劃，但z終被否決了，曼頓說，"出于審美考慮”。z近，她轉而請凱欣德·威利Kehindewiley)為其中一個主要的海濱廣場提交了一份方案。

      From some vantage points the sculpture looks like an elegant, high-tech cousin to the chunkier Transamerica Pyramid across the bay.

Jessica Chou for The New York Times

      從某些有利的角度看，這座雕塑就像是海灣對面的泛美金字塔的一個優(yōu)雅、高科技的表親。

杰西卡·周(Jessica Chou)，《紐約時報》

“With Antony and Pae, they were selected and asked to redesign. With Sugimoto, we wanted the sculpture exactly as proposed,” she said. “It’s so simple and elegant. It’s a very conceptual work but I think will appeal on many different levels, whether you know anything about art or not.”

      “與安東尼和佩伊一起，他們被選中并要求重新設計。對于杉本，我們想要的雕塑完全符合提議，"她說?！八群唵斡謨?yōu)雅。這是一個非常概念化的作品，但我認為它會在很多不同的層面上吸引人，不管你是否懂藝術。"

      As a photographer, Sugimoto came to prominence by making images that are both highly persuasive and strangely self-effacing. His rugged wildlife scenes capturing close-ups of polar bears or African antelope turn out to be dioramas he shot at the American Museum of Natural History. His pictures of brilliant white screens in ornate movie palaces actually come from photographing with one long exposure the entirety of a film as it plays. His photograph of Queen Elizabeth I, pure historical fiction, is really a portrait of her wax sculpture at Madame Tussauds.

      作為一名攝影師，杉本通過拍攝極具說服力和奇怪的謙遜的照片而出名。他拍攝的那些相獷的野生動物場號，捕捉到北極能或非洲羚羊的特寫鏡頭，原來是他在美國自然歷史博物館拍攝的立體模型。他在華麗的電影宮里拍攝的明亮的白色屏幕的照片實際上來自于一次長時間曝光拍攝電影放映時的整個畫面。他拍攝的伊麗莎白女王一世，純屬歷史虛構，其實是她在杜莎夫人蠟像館的蠟像肖像。

      With “Point of Infinity,” too, he says he’s interested in the play of presence and absence, or “the presence of immateriality” suggested by its hyperbolic geometry. He was immediately drawn to this geometry in 2003 when he saw a small, 19th-century mathematical model in a classroom at Tokyo University, designed to illustrate “a surface of revolution with a constant negative curvature,” also known as a pseudosphere.

      對于《無限點》也是如此，他說他對在場與不在場的玩法很感興趣，或者是它的雙曲幾何所暗示的“非物質性的在場”。2003年，當他在東京大學的教室里看到一個19世紀的小數(shù)學模型時，他立即被這種幾何結構所吸引，這個模型旨在說明“具有恒定負曲率的旋轉曲面”，也被稱為偽球。

      He soon photographed that plaster model. But the surface was rough, its tip was broken, and he thought he could do better “using the very highest Japanese accuracy.” He has since made a handful of high-precision sculptures in different sizes, with the same formula, branching into sculpture around the same time he started an architectural practice. One recent hyperbolic form, 揝undial? in Tokyo, reaches nearly 40 feet.

      他很快就拍下了這個石膏標型。但表面粗精，頂端破損，他認為用日本嚴苛的高精度可以做得更好:"從那以后，他用同樣的配方制作了幾件不同尺寸的高精度雕塑，大約在他開始建筑實踐的同時，他又涉足雕塑領域。東京的“日晷”(Sundial)是一種雙曲線形式，高達近40英尺。

      The largest of the group by far, “Point of Infinity,” is also a sundial in a sense, though without hour markings. Instead, Sugimoto will place a granite marker on the ground to align with the shadow cast by the artwork at solar noon on days of the spring and fall equinox. A ring of white gravel surrounds the sculpture to prevent it from becoming a skateboarding ramp.

      到目前為止，這一組中的大“無窮點”(Pointofinfinity)在某種意義上也是一個日暑，盡管沒有小時標記。相反，杉本將在春分和秋分的日子里，在地面上放置一個花崗巖標記，與藝術品在太陽正午投下的陰影對齊。一圈白色的礫石圍繞著雕塑，以防止它成為滑板坡道。

      For his part, Sugimoto sees “Point of Infinity” not as a sculpture but, nodding to Marcel Duchamp, as a readymade, because it’s based on a mathematical model. “It’s a found object, but price-wise it’s the same as a sculpture,” he said, laughing again.

      就杉本而言，他認為“無限之點”不是雕塑，而是現(xiàn)成的，因為它是基于數(shù)學模型的，這是對馬塞爾·杜尚(MarcelDuchamp)的致敬。“這是一件現(xiàn)成的物品，但就價格而言，它和雕塑是一樣的，”他說著又笑了起來。

      He referred to the project’s costs frequently, describing spikes in fabrication and global shipping over the past four years. Built in 29 sections, “Point of Infinity” was fabricated by Sanwa Tajima in Japan and shipped in eight containers to Oakland. The San Francisco Arts Commission contributed an extra

$350,000 in response to inflation, and the artist is absorbing other cost overruns himself.

      他經常提到這個項目的成本，描述了過去四年里制造成本和全球運輸成本的飆升?！癙oint of Infinity”由日本的田島三和SanwaTalimal制造，共分為29個部分，用8個集裝箱運往奧克蘭。為了應對通貨膨脹。舊金山藝術委員會額外捐助了35萬美元，而這位藝家也在自己承擔其他超支的費用。

      There could be one other major expense left: altering the cement walls lining the small hilltop park, remnants from a water tank on site. Noticing how they cut into city views, Sugimoto this week requested that the Arts Commission shave the walls down by about a foot to 42 inches. Manton says they are looking into it but “there are code and safety concerns.”

      可能還剩下一項主要開支:改造小山頂公園的水泥墻，這是現(xiàn)場一個水箱的殘余物。杉本注意到這些墻是如何破壞城市景觀的，本周他要求藝術委員會把這些墻削掉大約一英尺到42英寸，曼頓表示，他們正在調查此事，但“有規(guī)范和安全方面的考慮”。

      Assuming that doesn’t cause delays, the park, currently considered a construction site, should officially open to the public sometime this fall. Variously called Tower Park and Yerba Buena Island Hilltop Park, it will be renamed Infinity Point Park.

      假設這不會造成延誤，這個目前被認為是建筑工地的公園應該在今年秋天的某個時候正式向公眾開放。它被稱為“塔樓公園”和“芳草地島山頂公園”，將被重新命名為“無限點公園”。

      Sugimoto said he’d like to return around then to photograph the sculpture. “I will come back with this huge 8 x 10 camera. It’s cheaper to do it by myself,” he said, flashing another smile, “rather than asking for a professional photographer.”

      杉本說，他想在那時回來拍攝雕塑?！拔視е@個巨大的8x10相機回來的。他又笑了笑，說:“自己拍比找專業(yè)攝影師便宜?！?/p>

Hiroshi Sugimoto Jessica Chou for The New York Times

杉本博  杰西卡·周 紐約時報

      Jori Finkel is a reporter who covers art from Los Angeles. She is also the West Coast contributing editor for The Art Newspaper and author of “It Speaks to Me: Art that Inspires Artists.”

      A version of this article appears in print on , Section C, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: A Reach for In?nity From High on a Hill

    JoriFinkel，洛杉磯藝術報道記者。她也是《藝術報》(theArtNewspaper)的西海岸特約編輯，著有《它對我說話:激勵藝術家的藝術》(t Speaks to Me:ArthatinspirationArtists)。這篇文章的另一個版本出現(xiàn)在《紐約日報》第6頁C部分，標題為:從海到海的無限延伸。