Hiroshi Sugimoto

11 Oct 2023-7 Jan 2024

Overview

The largest retrospective to date of Hiroshi Sugimoto, an artist renowned for creating some of the most alluringly enigmatic photographs of our time.

Over the past 50 years, Sugimoto has created pictures which are meticulously crafted, deeply thought-provoking and quietly subversive. 

Featuring key works from all of the artist’s major photographic series, this retrospective highlights Sugimoto’s philosophical yet playful inquiry into our understanding of time and memory, and photography’s ability to both document and invent. 

The exhibition also includes lesser-known works that reveal the artist’s interest in the history of photography, as well as in mathematics and optical sciences. 

Often employing a large-format wooden camera and mixing his own darkroom chemicals, Sugimoto has repeatedly re-explored ideas and practices from 19th century photography while capturing subjects including dioramas, wax figures and architecture. His work has stretched and rearranged concepts of time, space and light that are integral to the medium.

Born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, Hiroshi Sugimoto divides his time between Tokyo and New York City. Over the past five decades, his photographs have received international acclaim and have been presented in major institutions across the globe. 

While best known as a photographer, Sugimoto has more recently added architecture, sculpture and set design to his multidisciplinary practice. 

His work is represented in major public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and National Gallery, London.

Hiroshi Sugimoto is generously supported by the Exhibition Supporters’ Group: Fraenkel Gallery, Marian Goodman Gallery, Gallery Koyanagi, the Rory and Elizabeth Brooks Foundation, Beth and Michele Colocci, Suling C Mead, Manizeh and Danny Rimer, Maria and Malek Sukkar, Michael G and C Jane Wilson and those who wish to remain anonymous. 

Additional support has been provided by the Japan Foundation and the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. 

The exhibition catalogue is kindly supported by Joe and Marie Donnelly and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.
 

Artists