Hiroshi Sugimoto, Bay of Sagami, Enoura, 2025 © Hiroshi Sugimoto / Courtesy of Gallery  Koyanagi

Exhibition Overview

Hiroshi Sugimoto (1948-) is a multidisciplinary contemporary artist. Active in the field of architecture—most notably with the Enoura Observatory in Odawara—he has also staged classical Japanese performing arts in Europe, the United States and Japan. Calligraphy, ceramics, waka poetry, cooking—his range is extensive. However, the point of origin for all Sugimoto’s art is gelatin silver photography. Based on rigorous conceptual thinking and originality of expression, Sugimoto’s photographic works stand at the very pinnacle of gelatin silver technique. But now, as film makes way for digital, the gelatin silver process itself is endangered and at real risk of “extinction.”

This exhibition will feature approximately 60 gelatin silver photographs from Sugimoto’s early days in the late 1970s all the way up to the present day. It is the large-scale solo exhibition of Sugimoto’s photographs to be held in Japan since his 2005 exhibition at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.

 A satellite exhibition featuring all of Sugimoto’s works from the museum’s own collection along with the Sugimoto Notebooks¹ which reveal the secrets of his process, will be held in parallel in the MOMAT Collection Gallery on the museum’s third floor.

Note 1: The Sugimoto Notebooks are notebooks with jottings covering the processes for the photographing and developing of Sugimoto’s works. The earliest notebooks date from the latter half of the 1970s.

Exhibition Structure and Highlights

All 13 photographic series, from Sugimoto’s early days to his most recent works, arranged in three chapters

Drawing on 13 of Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photographic series, this exhibition traces the evolution of his artistic universe following a loose chronological sequence.

Chapter One: “Time, Light and Memory” presents the origins of Sugimoto’s artistic universe through “Dioramas,” “Theaters” and “Seascapes.” These three series, all of which were started in the 1970s and 1980s, established Sugimoto’s reputation.

Chapter Two: “Conceptual Forms” presents the process of the expansion and deepening of Sugimoto’s artistic universe through series such as “Conceptual Forms” and “Stylized Sculpture,” which were begun at the end of the 1990s and take the variety of forms produced by the human intellect and imagination as their subject.

Chapter Three: “Extinction” explores Sugimoto’s evolving vision of the “extinction” he foresees. It is composed of six series which go all the way back to the origins of soon-to-be extinct silver gelatin photography, from “Pre-Photography Time-Recording Device” and “Photogenic Drawing” to the more recent “Opticks.”

New Works Exhibited for the First Time

New additions to “Dioramas” and “Seascapes,” Sugimoto’s famous early series, and the later “Stylized Sculpture,” will go on display for the first time. The addition of several new works, such as Pokot, to “Dioramas,” Sugimoto’s celebrated debut work, is of particular note. With this new configuration, a profound visual account of human history—secretly conceived at the start of the series in 1975 and taking over half a century to achieve full realization—will be go on show for the first time.

About “Extinction”

Extinction is a theme that emerged from Sugimoto’s contemplation of the imminent demise of silver gelatin media and of the imminent cessation of his own activities as an artist. His vision of extinction does not, however, end there. So what else is facing extinction? Look out for “extinction” as a theme that runs like a basso continuo throughout this exhibition surveying the entirety of Sugimoto’s oeuvre, which has broadened and deepened the expressive possibilities of photography as a medium over the last half century.

Biography

Born in 1948. Moved to the United States in 1970, and from 1974 started producing work while shuttling back and forth between New York and Japan. His early best-known photographic series are “Dioramas,”“Seascapes” and “Theaters.” He founded an architectural practice, New Material Research Laboratory, in 2008, and established Odawara Art Foundation in 2009, before opening Enoura Observatory in 2017, a cultural complex that took 10 years from conception to completion. At The Hawk’s Well, a dance production he directed and set-designed was performed at the Opéra National de Paris in 2019. His publications include Time Exposed, Utsutsu Na Zo, Origins of Art, Enoura Kitan and Kagero Nikki. Awards include the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (2001); the Praemium Imperiale for painting (2009); and the Medal with Purple Ribbon (2010). He was made an Officier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France in 2013, selected as a Person of Cultural Merit in Japan in 2017, and elected as a member of the Japan Art Academy in 2023.