PHOTO:Hiroshi Sugimoto -Black Box
A multidisciplinary artist, Hiroshi Sugimoto works with photography, sculpture, architecture and installation. A photographer since the ‘70s, his work deals with history and temporal existence by investigating themes of time, empiricism, and metaphysics. Sugimoto has reinterpreted the classic tradition of photography, bringing a conceptual element to genres such as still life, abstract photography, portraiture and photography of the natural world.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Fundación MAPFRE Archive
The exhibition “Black Box” presents 41 large-format works of Hiroshi’s Sugimoto’s best known photographic series: “Dioramas”, “Portraits” and his ongoing series “Theaters”, “Seascapes” and “Lightning Fields”. A close follower of Ansel Adams’s technical teachings, Sugimoto has rejected digital photography in favour of traditional methods, using them to obtain prints that are notable for their perfect finish and lifelikeness, while also capturing realities that are invisible to the human eye, playing with the gap that arises between what is seen by the eye and processed by the mind. “Dioramas” (1976-2012) comprises photographs of tableaux of pre-historic landscapes, the majority taken in the Museum of Natural History in New York. This was Sugimoto’s first photographic series but it already contains many of the characteristics and methods that subsequently recur throughout his work. “Portraits” (1994-1999) comprises studio photographs of historical figures made in wax. These works are highly meditated constructions: in his studio the artist located the wax models against a black background in order to give them an archetypal, larger-than-life appearance. “Theaters” (1976- ) comprises photographs taken in classic and drive-in cinemas. The light reflected on the screens provides the only source of light within the dark interiors, their various decorative elements reflecting Sugimoto’s interest in architecture and aesthetic stylings of time past. “Seascapes” (1980- ) brings together a series of elemental landscapes of the sea and sky taken in different parts of the world. Some were photographed during the day and others at night, some are misty with the horizon barely visible, while others have a crisp clarity that reveals the forms of the waves. Despite the Romantic and almost mystical effect of these works, their titles are objective and documentary, reflecting Sugimoto’s roots in Conceptual art. Created without a camera, the photographs in “Lightning Fields” (2006- ) record the effects that electrical shocks produce on photographic negatives. In other words, they represent electricity directly applied to photographic film. This series reveals Sugimoto’s fascination with science and natural phenomena, highlighting the connection that exists between the experimentation characteristic of scientific methodology and the procedures used in early photography of the 19th Century.
Info: Curator: Philip Larratt-Smith, Fundación MAPFRE, Casa Garriga i Nogués Exhibition Hall, Diputació 250, Barcelona, Duration: 19/2-8/5/16, Days & Hours: Mon 14:00-20:00, Tue-Sat 10:00-20:00, Sun 11:00-19:00, www.fundacionmapfre.org
