confessions of a mask, por hiroshi sugimoto

Time's Arrow
1987 (seascape: 1980; reliquary fragment: Kamakura period, thirteen century)
Gelatin silver print, gilt bronze

"The face is the site of the human emotions. We might even say that each of us becomes a person by mastering the highly specialized skills required to express emotions by means of our facial instrumentation. Ever more diverse states combined with control of the vocal chords lead us further, to the verbalization of emotions. At this stage, the face becomes a mask of the mind. As the mind changes constantly, so does the mask, yet people have tried to arrest these facial permutations temporarily to effect a more powerful impression - creating masks of the mask, as it were. Thus, the carved mask was born."


- in Confessions of a Mask, de Hiroshi Sugimoto