Contemporary Photographs held on 13th October 2008 at Christie’s New York venue totalled intakes for 1,020,250 dollars.  An interesting sale whose protagonists were the most emblazoned names of contemporary photography, such as David LaChapelle, Annie Leibovitz, Nan Goldin. Altogether 54 lots, almost all of them very important for their great aesthetic and artistic quality, executed by artists that have been appreciated for a long time in the economic-artistic system.
Among the highlights of the various pieces presented to the public in the saleroom were pictures by great artists who have marked the evolvement of international photography.  Among these we should mention for instance “Untitled (Snake Powder)” by Adam Fuss which, from a pre-sale estimate between 50 and 70 thousand dollars, sold for 50 thousand dollars or “Still Life (Candle)” by Louise Lawler, which from a valuation of 25-35 thousand dollars, sold for 50 thousand dollars.
However, of the 54 lots proposed, the real protagonist of the New York sale was Hiroshi Sugimoto, photographer of Nipponese origins, recognized at international level.  Indeed, the work “Seascapes, 1987-1993”  from an estimate between 100 and 150 thousand dollars,  was bought for 110,500 dollars.  The work is composed of three gelatin silver prints which come from the prestigious Sonnabend Gallery of New York and deal with a theme dear to the artist: the sea.  Indeed, in the “Seascapes” series, Hiroshi Sugimoto insists for various years on the same subject, perhaps elaborating minimal variations.  In this series, the sea waves are offered to him as a landscape which, despite being in continuous movement, remains unvaried throughout the centuries, “the last vision that we can share with the ancients”, a natural opportunity for a representation that tends towards “classicism”.  As Francesco Bonami says: “Sugimoto’s work is a search inside the origins of History, whether this is the zoological history of the earth or the history of human deeds, seen, symbolically, through the passing of time in the lens of the camera and using the film as the memory surface.
Hiroshi Sugimoto is one of the most fascinating photographers of contemporary art. He has worked on his photo cycles for more than thirty years.  His black and white photos are studies carried out in silence, full of clarity and emptiness.  In his oeuvre he unites the aesthetics from the Far East to the artistic influence originated from modern western art.  “I am not a hunter” – the artist himself says – “I already have the photos ready in my head and I only need to go outside to concretize these ideas”. 
Sugimoto was born in 1948 in Japan where he studied economics and politics but, as he was not interested in any type of traditional professional life, in 1970 he moved to California and followed courses at the Art Centre College. Once he had completed his studies, he opened two workshops: one in New Work and the other in Japan.
Therefore, his artistic formation takes place in the United States, in a moment when Conceptual Art and Minimalism are dominating the scene and will have a definitive influence on the Japanese artist.  Interested in such poetics, Sugimoto retrieves some of the recurrent themes of the works by Carl Andre and Dan Flavin such as rectangular shapes, the colour white, the light as artistic material, revaluing them with his photography.
Since his first steps as an artist, Sugimoto has revealed a formal attention towards his works, the desire to combine conceptual art with aesthetic seduction, continuing, however, to conceive photography as a mere instrument to translate his own ideas into a visual sign.
“However, I believe that the deepest concepts can be expressed only using a well-mastered technique”. Sugimoto, with such type of statements, wants to stem a possible drift of art towards the privilege of concepts to the disadvantage of formal solutions. 
Sugimoto always seems to look for images whose limpidity and beauty cannot be tarnished by the passing of time or by details. His search tends towards “classicism” because he targets representations that reveal an immutable essence, not conditioned by circumstances, like the Japanese artist also seems to confront himself with the genre of portraits.
Sugimoto is a very appreciated artist in the art market.  Since 1995, 643 works have been at auction, with a sale percentage equal to 91%. His top price dates back to 16th May 2007 at Christie’s New York, when the work “Black Sea, Ozuluce; Yellow Sea, Cheju; Red Sea, Safaga” (triptych) sold for 1,888,000 dollars, the double of its estimate.
Usually in galleries, Sugimoto’s pictures have quite important prices.  For instance a 50×60 cm is valued at about 20 thousand dollars, while the larger formats rise up to 80-90 thousand dollars.  In other words, the trade exchanges of this Japanese minimalist artist are very lively, especially in Tokyo and the USA, recording a remarkable and constant success. (translated by Giorgina Arcuri)