Hiroshi Sugimoto: the Long Never

Book excerpt: The Long Never is a special-edition book containing 65 artworks by Hiroshi Sugimoto (born 1948). Composed of photographs from five series--Meteorites, Dioramas, Pre-Photographic Time Recording Devices, Lightning Fields and Seascapes--the sequence of images in this book conjures a natural history of the planet, perhaps even one untouched by humans. The black-and-white photographs are hand-tipped onto the pages of the book, which is wrapped in silk cloth. Celebrated author Jonathan Safran Foer has written an original story for the volume. Foer's text sits on the page underneath each artwork, so the reader must lift up each photograph in order to read the story. The Long Never is limited to an edition of 360 copies. It is housed in a custom-made brushed aluminum slipcase. Each copy contains a colophon with the number of the edition and is signed by Sugimoto.