HIROSHI SUGIMOTO

Life

Born in Tokyo in 1948, Sugimoto completed his studies at Saint Paul's University in 1970 and travelled west. Since 1974, he has lived and worked in New York and Tokyo.

Hiroshi Sugimoto Artworks

Sugimoto's black and white photographs, produced since the 1970s, effectively blur the line between real and fictive. Taken up close, his photographs of dioramas are strikingly real, with their black and white tones softening the painted backdrop. Yet upon close inspection, a small detail, such as the awkward shape of a seal in Polar Bear (1976), can dismantle the carefully built illusion.

Likewise, his 'Seascape' (1980—ongoing) series—in which the artist captured the horizon at different times of day and in different climates—is strangely quiet and surreal. In each photograph Sugimoto creates a hybrid world: one that blends the real and the imaginary.

Sugimoto's photographs are carefully devised compositions. In a conversation with Ocula Magazine in 2017, Sugimoto explained that he develops his work from a concept, using 'photography as a tool to explain what I am looking at in depth and inside my mind.'

'Theatre' series

Time is a fundamental aspect of Sugimoto's photographs. His 'Theatre' series—initially conceived in 1976—features photographs of cinema halls taken with the camera shutter set to a long exposure. In the final image, the screen has become a rectangular slab of white light, something the viewer may find eerie or contemplative.

At the turn of the new century, Sugimoto's fascination with the history of theatre brought him back to Japan, where he collaborated with practitioners of traditional Japanese Noh theatre to establish a new tradition in the ancient art. Sugimoto Bunraku Sonezaki Shinju: The Love Suicides at Sonezaki (2014) is a modern interpretation of traditional puppet theatre and gained immense critical acclaim while touring throughout Europe and the United States. In 2013, Sugimoto also directed Sambaso: Kami hisomi iki or Divine Dance, which was presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Colour

In 2018, Sugimoto introduced colour to his ongoing series 'Opticks'. The soft gradation of warm or cool colours in the photographs evoke the sunset or sunrise, but they were created by capturing the rainbow colours of light through a prism. In 2024, that artist told Ocula Magazine that '[T]heir purpose is to describe how beautiful light and colour can be.'

Other Projects

Sugimoto has also expanded his practice to work with architecture, sculpture, interior design, and cultural advancement. In 2008, the artist established the Tokyo-based architectural firm New Material Research Laboratory, followed by the Odawara Art Foundation a year later, a non-profit organisation that promotes Japanese culture with an international perspective.

Exhibitions

Hiroshi Sugimoto has held solo exhibitions at Hayward Gallery, London; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, New South Wales; Serpentine Gallery, London; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; and UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, among others. His work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions including Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Metropolitan Museum, New York; National Portrait Gallery, London; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Kunsthaus Zurich.

Sugimoto's work has been collected by institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; and Tate Gallery, London.

Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2024