- Hiroshi Sugimoto: Black Box, 2016 - a survey of Sugimoto's most iconic workOur PickBy Philip Larratt-Smith (Author), Iran do Espírito Santo (Author), Hiroshi Sugimoto (Photographer)
- Hiroshi Sugimoto: Seascapes, 2015By Munesuke Mita (Author), Hiroshi Sugimoto (Photographer)
- Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time ExposedBy Thomas Kellein (Author) and Hiroshi Sugimoto (Photographer)
- Hiroshi Sugimoto: Theaters, 2016
Important Art by Hiroshi Sugimoto
Polar Bear (1976)
Polar Bear is amongst the earliest images in Sugimoto's Dioramas series (1976 - 2012), most of which were taken at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The image portrays a bear in an arctic landscape paused above the body of a seal and is deliberately constructed, with use of reflectors to capture the texture of fur and careful calibration of exposure time to isolate the white shades of bear and backdrop, so that the scene appears real. Sugimoto's photographs of dioramas provoke a questioning of the ways in which museums display natural history, suspending time through images in which the slippage between the wild and the artificial becomes palpable. Sugimoto creates his work with a large-format wooden camera and photographs in black and white, developing the images according to the recipes of Ansel Adams, furthering the illusion of the diorama as he removes the artificial colors of the painted backdrop.
This image, like Sugimoto's work more broadly, is closely involved with the history of photography and notions of time in relation to and apart from human history. The diorama, as a means of presenting the world, became popular in the late-19th century, in the same period in which photography began to be lauded for its scientific accuracy, and both technologies derived power from their ability to capture and preserve specific moments. Sugimoto's major contribution to visual art lies in the craft with which he uses the camera's relationship to time and its capacity for illusion to focus our attention on ways in which humans makes sense of the natural world. Sugimoto has continued exploring the concepts central to the Dioramas series in other works, including Portraits (1999 - present), which takes another 19th-century technology, the wax figure, as a subject.
Ligurian Sea, Saviore (1982)
The Seascapes series (1980 - present) continues Sugimoto's investigation of time in relation to history and to photography itself. Ligurian Sea, Saviore shows water and air bisected by the horizon, captured in black and white in a long exposure. The image offers no trace of the vantage point from which the photograph was taken, leading the viewer to feel as if they are suspended, floating, between sea and sky. Sugimoto's Seascapes are all composed in this manner, drawing upon the horizon as a point of orientation across cultures and across time. The format serves to unify disparate locations, positioning the sea as at once universal and singular; each image conforms to a type that allows specificity. In Ligurian Sea, Saviore, the sea and sky appear indistinct, as if enveloped in fog, with only close scrutiny revealing the darker grey of the horizon line and a hint of the ripples of the water in the foreground.
Seascapes is deeply conceptual and Sugimoto has written that this work comes out of his understanding of the ocean as an expanse that has lasted through millennia, connecting us with a past that precedes recorded history, and his contemplation of the ways in which a camera can capture what the eye cannot. In the images, which are created with exposures of between 1/30 of a second and several hours, time serves to abstract the landscape, and the only indication of a human presence is in the names that the images are given, which act as a record of the ways in which people make sense of the ineffable through concepts such as naming. The photographs from this series are usually displayed in groups of three, further emphasizing the universality of the ocean.
Color of Shadows, 1015 (2004)
The Color of Shadows series (2004) can be seen as indicative of Sugimoto's desire to push his investigations to their limits, involving elaborate staging in pursuit of a seemingly simple study of the effects of light. Color of Shadows, 1015, depicts a white corridor leading to a white wall, with only the hint of wooden floorboards at the lower edge of the frame disrupting the ascetic space. The image's formal definition is provided by the tones and colors of shadow, with blocks and gradations creating depth and visual interest. Sugimoto's vision for the project required him to redesign the interior of a hilltop penthouse, surfacing the walls in shikkui, a Japanese plaster which absorbs and reflects light evenly. The subsequent photographs record the light and shadows at different angles, exposures, and times of day, directing attention to the volumes and corners of the space's architecture.
This series, like others by Sugimoto that take modern and contemporary architecture as subject, can be seen as a new phase in his engagement with physical space and the history of photography. The photographic image, at its most basic, is formed by light registering on a surface, and Sugimoto's series returns the viewer to this principle, explicitly directing attention to the formal qualities of shadow. Sugimoto's images of austere, formally pure interiors strip away superfluous detail, creating a suspended state in which it is the play of light and shadow that connect the world of the image with the world outside. Sugimoto's camera captures the ephemeral and allows us to contemplate it at a duration and with a remove which would otherwise be impossible. The value of Color of Shadows, 1015 is dependent upon the viewer's intuitive appreciation of subtle gradations of tone and color and, in this, can be considered as a commentary on the way in which we are emotionally moved by the elements that sustain earth, including light.
Influences and Connections

- Louis Daguerre
- Ansel Adams
- Marcel Duchamp
- William Henry Fox Talbot
- Hasegawa Tohaku
- Rika Noguchi
- Takashi Homma
- Yves Marchand
- Romain Meffre
- Photo Conceptualism