Art Blog #181
- Paul Connor
- 18 minutes ago
- 3 min read
My top five artists (not in the gallery) - Photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto
Quick Bio:
Hiroshi Sugimoto is a Japanese photographer, architect, and multidisciplinary contemporary artist known for his conceptually rich and meticulously crafted works that delve into themes of time, memory, and perception.
His acclaimed series such as 'Dioramas', 'Theatres', and 'Seascapes' are often produced using long exposures with an 8×10 large-format camera.
He heads the New Material Research Laboratory and is the designer of the Enoura Observatory.
Influenced by Duchamp and Surrealism, Hiroshi Sugimoto has been awarded significant honours, including the Hasselblad Award and the Praemium Imperiale.
Recent Exhibitions:
2026
Extinction - National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo -
Form is Emptiness - Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
Taking up the Melody - Musée Soulages, Rodez, France
2025
The Contemporary “Sukisha”―Sokuō and Hiroshi Sugimoto, Tradition and Creation. Ebara Hatakeyama Museum of Art , TokyoHiroshi Sugimoto. Winsing Art Place, Taipei
2024
Form Is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form - Lisson Gallery, Los Angeles
Optical Allusion, Lisson Gallery, New York
Giacometti/Sugimoto: Staged, The Institute Giacometti, Paris
2023
Opera House, a selection for Bergamo, Academia Carrara, Bergamo
Hiroshi Sugimoto, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
Time Machine, Hayward Gallery, London
Playing with Fire, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo
2022
The Descent of The Kasuga Spirit, Kasugataisha Museum, Nara Honkadori. Himeji City Museum of Art, Himeji, Opera House. Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo
Five Elements, Noh Climax. Engyoji Temple, Himeji
Journey of the Kasuga Spirit, Kanazawa Prefectural Kanazawa Bunko Museum, Yokohama
Paul writes:
Hiroshi Sugimoto is an exceptional photographer whose images are undoubtedly considered art, a challenging feat particularly in monochrome.
For over fifty years, he has been both exploring his craft and pushing the boundaries of art.
Being Japanese, he possesses a sensibility deeply rooted in the philosophies of Daoism, Buddhism, and Shintoism, capturing nature in a beautiful and enigmatic manner.
I find his photography mesmerizing at times and almost always inspiring.
There is a concept in Japan, Ma, the space between all things. Hiroshi Sugimoto captures Ma wonderfully showcasing contrast in many of it's myriad forms. When photographing in black and white, contrast is everything, preciseness, composition and clarity also are very important.
Hiroshi's imagination and the ability to elegantly capture that on film is impressive and his range is inspiring.
I especially admire his precision, professionalism, longevity. humilty and integrity when it comes to his art and discussing it. He has a vision for creating the future, a nostalgia for human endeavours of the past, yet he remains deeply grounded in the present.
Hiroshi Sugimoto's photography symbolises what good photography should look like, embodying a profound understanding of both the medium and the philosophical underpinnings of visual art.
Other interests and work:
Architecture - His projects feature an architectural commission at Naoshima Contemporary Art Center in Japan, where he designed and constructed a Shinto shrine. He is also involved in performance art taking place alongside these creations.
In 2013, Sugimoto created a sculpture and rock garden for the Sasha Kanetanaka restaurant in Omotesandō, Tokyo. He also designed Stove, a French restaurant housed in a refurbished wooden house in the Kiyoharu Art Village, Yamanashi Prefecture.
He also designed Point of Infinity, a nearly 70 ft-high stainless steel needle that also acts as a sundial, on top of the Yerba Buena Hilltop Park on Yerba Buena Island.
In 2009, Sugimoto established the Odawara Art Foundation to promote Japanese culture.[46] In 2014, the Japan Society awarded a $6 million grant to the foundation.[46] The money will go to the construction of a multidisciplinary arts complex in Odawara, about 60 miles west of Tokyo.
The Enoura Observatory is a museum and land art exhibition designed by Japanese multimedia artist Hiroshi Sugimoto and located in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Built along the hills of Odawara with principles of Heian gardening in mind, it features architecture interwoven into natural surroundings, Sugimoto's works on display, and objects of archaeological significance, among other installations.
After two decades of planning, it opened in 2017.
The museum, created in partnership with Japanese architect Tomoyuki Sakakida, opened on October 9, 2017.
It took over 20 years for him and his collaborators to bring it to fruition.
His goal was to create a space where others could reconnect with their most fundamental memories, such as the first awareness of time passing, as well as with traditional Japanese aesthetics.
He views it as the most comprehensive project of his career, which spans multiple disciplines, and hopes the space will "devolve beautifully into ruins of stone" following the collapse of civilization.
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