High and Low

U2 apparently has a new album out, entitled "No Line on the Horizon."  Here's the cover:

The photograph (sans the "equal" sign) is of course by Hiroshi Sugimoto, Japanese minimalist and current artworld favorite. Sugimoto has done a gazillion of these self-described "seascapes," all taken in different locations.  I don't know where this one was taken, but don't really care -- they're all the same to me.  I know, I know -- there are subtle differences in tone detail shading texture mood etc. (Click here for Sugimoto's explanation). Distinctions without a difference, I say.

Of course, de gustibus non est disputandum.  So if Bono and mates like Sugimoto, who am I to complain?

For two reasons.  First, why choose a Sugimoto seascape in which the horizon line dominates the image, for an album entitled "No Line on the Horizon"?  In some of the seascapes, there's a blurring of the horizon -- a blending of sea & sky -- due to the atmospheric conditions, like this one:

In contrast, the one chosen by U2 is dominated by the horizon line -- the viewer's eye is drawn immediately to the bisecting horizontal element.  Odd choice given the album's title.

Second, why the equal sign?  Isn't it obvious enough that a central motif of Sugimoto's photograph is the equivalence of air and water?  If you're trying to demonstrate your aesthetic sophistication by using the photograph of an artstar for your album cover, it seems ass-backward to muck it up by adding a superfluous graphic.

Is it U2's effort at appropriation art?

I must be missing something.  Maybe the answer's in the lyrics.