Five Elements: Lake Superior, Eagle River, No. 53552.01

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Five Elements: Lake Superior, Eagle River, No. 53552.01

Designer Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japanese, born 1948)

Manufacturer Mihoya Glass Co. Ltd.

Date2011

DimensionsH: 6 in. (15.2 cm); W: 3 in. (7.6 cm); Depth: 3 in. (7.6 cm)

MediumOptical glass, cast, assembled, with inlaid black and white transparency film.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number

2012.8

Not on View

DescriptionCast glass sculpture consisting of five stacked geometric elements (bottom to top): a cube, a sphere with a black and white transparency of a seascape sandwiched vertically between its two hemispheres, a pyramidal shape, a hemisphere, and a drop-shaped element.

Label TextWith deity or Buddha both vanished from this day and age, in what can I take refuge? Just perhaps the only object of devotion I have left is the origin of my consciousness, the sea. And so in this Five-Element Pagoda made of optical glass I enshrine a seascape within the water sphere. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s sculpture is shaped like a five-story Japanese Buddhist pagoda set on an elongated wooden pedestal. It references miniature shrines made of rock crystal, a material revered in the early Buddhist world for its purity and its ability to transmit light. The five stacked elements represent, from bottom to top: the earth (cube), water (sphere), fire (pyramid), wind (hemisphere) and space (tear-drop shape)—together symbolizing the cosmos. The optical glass of the pagoda amplifies the seascape image within—a photograph of Lake Superior—alluding to the concept of infinity within the earthly realm. The encased film transparency is from Sugimoto’s ongoing “Seascapes” series of black and white photographs, his best-known work.Published References"Jurors' Choice", New Glass Review, 34, 2013, p. 72, repr. (col.) p. 94.Exhibition HistoryNew York, The Pace Gallery, Hiroshi Sugimoto: Surface of the Third Order, 2011, pp.36-37, repr. (col.) cover, pp. 36-37.Comparative ReferencesSee also Hiroshi Sugimoto on Five Elements in Optical Glass (2011), Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX, October, 2011-July 15, 2012. Cf. Harle, J.C. and Topsfield, A. Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1987, p.16, fig. 19 (a schist rock crystal example) Cf. Kurita, I. Gandharan Art II, the World of the Buddha, Japan, 1990 pp.261-273, figs. 790-873 (reliquary stupas).