Seascape: Baltic Sea, near Rügen 1996

Editor: Here we have Hiroshi Sugimoto's "Seascape: Baltic Sea, near Rügen" from 1996, a striking black and white photograph. It's almost meditative, this very simple division of sea and sky. It feels elemental, you know? What stands out to you in this piece? Curator: You know, it does have that quality, doesn’t it? It whispers rather than shouts. For me, it's the way Sugimoto uses photography to almost erase time. I imagine him standing there, patiently waiting for the precise moment, capturing not just a visual scene, but a sense of the eternal. Does it remind you of anything? A Rothko perhaps? Or even a musical tone, sustained and pure? Editor: I can definitely see the Rothko connection, that search for the sublime through reduction. I’m struck by the almost perfect horizontality. There's a serenity, but is there also maybe something unsettling? Curator: Unsettling... interesting. It’s like staring into the abyss, isn’t it? That perfect line…it’s the edge of everything, where the tangible world dissolves. Maybe Sugimoto is asking us to confront our own insignificance in the face of the infinite. What do you think? Editor: That’s really thought-provoking. I hadn’t considered that reading of it. It makes me want to look at it differently now, less as a pretty picture and more as a challenge. Curator: Exactly! Art should shake us up a bit, right? Make us question our place in the vastness of it all. I love how Sugimoto can do that with what appears to be such a simple image. Editor: I agree, that simplicity is so deceptive. I will not be able to unsee it after this chat, thank you so much!