[Title] L’histoire de l’histoire
[Artist] Hiroshi Sugimoto
[Date] October 20 – December 28, 2003
L’histoire de l’histoire
‘’There are two kinds of history, one is recorded one unrecorded. But neither is static, and even those most firmly written down have to be continually reworked, with new glosses added to them. People make these additions to ensure that stories match the spirit of the time.
The same can be said of the history of objects. Theories about the origin of the world were once the preserve of religion, and the ancients treated the enticing theme via myths, which people never doubted. Later came the Renaissance and the Copernican Revolution. Theories of how objects were and how they changed began to be subjected to scientific verification. Theories could be proved or disproved, by experiment. It seemed as if the origin of the universe could be found by retracing the chain of objects, one by one, with the help of science. This is how we arrived at the Big Bang theory. Yet it only gives rise to a new question of what was around one second before the Big Bang. Rewriting the history of objects will always continue in this way.
Consider also the history of art. Since the age of cave painting, people have sought a viewpoint from which to see this chaotic world, in a single gaze. Artists played their part, as they still do. No matter how convincing religion and science seem in their assertions about the nature of the world, there is always a darkness excluded from explanation. Art is a means of looking into the interior of that darkness, scooping up the minute and shining particles scattered in it. In other words, art is a device for decoding the darkness. There are recorded and unrecorded histories, but there is also a history yet to be registered. What are presented here are small fragments of history, or, some parts of a history to be assembled by yourself.’’
Hiroshi Sugimoto