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

一个新的杉本博司雕塑在旧金山达到无限

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

他的作品《无限之点》标志着这座城市金银岛艺术计划的开始

By Jori Finkel

作者：约里·丰克尔

Reporting from San Francisco

旧︻金山报道

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∑房地产开发，旧金山的天际线在过去二十年里发生了根本性的变化。现在，它又在发生变化，但微妙地是因为一件△艺术品。日本艺术家杉本博以其狡猾的欺骗性摄影而闻名，他刚刚在芳草地岛的山▂顶上种植了一个细长■的、69英尺高的不锈钢↑雕塑，考虑到它的高度，它的目的是作为该地区新公共艺术项目的锚々或者灯塔了。

      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.

      从某些≡角度看，它就像一根针尖从圣朗西斯科湾岛上的树木和蜂窝塔上伸出来。从另一些人的角度来看◥，它似乎是横海☆湾的泛美金字塔的优难的高科技表兄弟。因为它特殊的弯曲几何形状，从23英尺的混凝土基座逐渐变细，顶部直径不到一英寸◥，这个雕塑看起来好像越来越小，越来越高，因为它到达了地球的外层大气层。

      杉本博司，外文名Hiroshi Sugimoto，日本人，出生在︼东京，从小接受西方油画的艺术教育，在美国留学毕业↘，经过学习研究，成为出名摄影师，艺术家，被誉为「z后的现代√主义者」。

      他的创作将东西方史学、哲学和美学带入摄影，并将摄影◢作品提升至艺术品层次。除摄影创作，他还经手室内设计、能剧舞台、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.

     这座雕塑还有一个更实际或者更政治的目的，标志着芳草地岛和毗邻的金□银岛（1942年至1997年间的海军基地）成为一个新的文化目的地。“无限点”的预算为200万美元，是金银岛艺术计划下创作的第一件重要艺术♂品。该计划由旧金山艺术委员会∮运营，由“1%”计划资助，该计划从岛上新开发项目的建设成本中抽成。

      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.

      金银岛发展局计划建造8000套住房，其中27%被视为经济适用房。金银岛艺术计划的负责人Ψ吉尔·曼顿说，在这个400英亩的场地●中，大约有75%被指定为公共空间，这使它↘成为“金门公园建成以来，纽约市z大的公共开▓放空间”。她描述了可以放置公共艺术的公园、人行道和广场。

      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.

      她说，“如果「一切按计划进行”，金银岛艺术项目的总预算可能会超过5000万美元，但她也承认房地产市场存在波动。参与该项目的三家开发商z近←还互相起诉。

      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▅的新雕塑在旧金山延伸到无限-纽约时报艺术策划过程也不顺利。杉本在这个项目上的工作始于2017年，当时该市公开征集艺术家。到那一年年╲底，他被一个委员会选为七名决选手一（(从495名申请者中)，为三个地点制∞定方案，两名决赛选手，佩伊·怀特和安东尼·戈姆利，也进入了下一阶段，并修改了他们的计划，但z终被◥否决了，曼顿说，"出于审◢美考虑”。z近，她转而请凯欣德·威利Kehindewiley)为※其中一个主要的海滨广场提交了一份方案。

      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

      从某些有利的角度看，这座↑雕塑就像是海湾对面的泛美金字塔的一个优雅、高科技的表亲。

      杰西卡·周(Jessica Chou)，《纽约时报》

    “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.”

    “与安东尼和佩伊一起，他∏们被选中并要求重新设计。对于杉本，我们想要的雕塑完全符合提议，"她说。“它既简单又优雅。这是一个非常概念Ψ 化的作品，但我认为它会在很多不☆同的层面上吸引人，不管你是否懂艺术。"

      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.

      作为一名摄影师，杉本通过拍摄说服力和奇怪的谦逊的照片而△出名。他拍摄的那些相犷的野生动物场号，捕捉到北极能或非洲羚羊的特写镜头，原来是他在〓美国自然历史博物馆拍摄的立』体模型。他在华丽的电影宫里拍摄的明亮的白色屏幕的照片实际上来自于一次长时间曝光拍摄电影放映时的整个画面。他拍摄的伊丽莎白女王一√世，纯属历史虚构，其实是她在杜莎夫人蜡像馆的蜡像肖像。

      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.

      对于《无限点》也是如此，他说他对在场与不在场的玩法很感兴趣，或者是它的双曲几何所暗示◇的“非物质性的在●场”。2003年，当他在东京大学的教室里看到一个19世纪的小数学模型时，他立即被这种几何结构所吸引，这个模型旨在说〖明“具有恒定负曲率的旋转曲面”，也被称为伪球。

      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※这个石膏标型。但表面粗精，他认为用日本z高的精度可以做得更好:"从那以后，他用同样的配方制作了几件不同尺寸的◥高精度雕塑，大约在他开始建筑实践的同时，他又涉足雕塑领域。z近，东京的“日晷”(Sundial)是一种双曲线形式，高达近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①目前为止，这一▓组中较大的“无穷点”(Pointofinfinity)在某种意义上也是一个日暑，尽管没有小时→标记。相反，杉本将在春分和秋分的》日子里，在地面上放置一个花岗岩♀标记，与艺术品在太阳正午投下的阴影对齐。一圈白色的砾石围绕着雕塑，以防止它成为滑板○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，他认为“无限之点”不是雕塑，而是现成的，因为它是基︾于数学模型的，这是对马塞尔·杜尚(MarcelDuchamp)的致敬。“这是一件ζ现成的物品，但就价格而言，它和雕塑是一样的，”他说¤着又笑了起来。

      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.

      他经常提到这个项目的成本，描述ζ　了过去四年里制造成本和全球运输成本的飙升。“Point of Infinity”由日本的田岛三和◤SanwaTalimal制造，共分为29个部分，用8个■集装箱运往奥克兰。为了应对通货膨胀。旧金山艺术委员会额外捐助了35万美元，而这位艺家也在自己承〓担其他超支的费用。

     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.”

     可能还剩下一项主ω要开支:改造小山顶公园的水泥墙，这是现场一个水箱的残余物。杉本注意到这№些墙是如何破坏城市景观的，本周他要求艺术委员会「把这些墙削掉大约一英♂尺到42英寸，曼顿表示，他们正在调查此事，但“有规范和安全方面的考虑”。

      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.

     假设这㊣　不会造成延误，这个目前被认为是建筑工地的公园应该在今年秋天的某个时候正式向公众开放。它被称为“塔楼公园”和“芳草地岛山顶公园”，将被重新命名为↑“无限】点公园╲”。

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.”

    杉本说，他想在那时回来拍摄雕塑。“我会带着这个巨大的8x10相机回来的〓。他又笑了笑『，说:“自己拍比找专业摄影师便№宜。”

Hiroshi Sugimoto Jessica Chou for The New York Times

杉本博  杰西卡·周 纽约时报

      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，洛杉矶艺术报道记者。她也是《艺术报》(theArtNewspaper)的西海岸特◥约编辑，著有《它对我卐说话:激励艺术家的艺▓术》(t Speaks to Me:ArthatinspirationArtists)。这篇文章的另一个版本出现在《纽约日报》第6页C部分，标题为:从海到海的无限延伸。