Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto, capturing time and temporal existence

Hiroshi Sugimoto was born in 1948 in Tokyo and took his earliest photographs in high school. After University he travelled to the West, where he encountered communist countries such as the Soviet Union and Poland before arriving in Western Europe.
When he moved to New York in 1974 he visited the American Museum of Natural History for the first time and was hypnotized by the diorama of animals and people. The animals were simultaneously real and surreal; he had found a way to look at the world as if he were a camera.
Sugimoto is a multi-disciplinary artist who works with photography, sculpture, installation and architecture. Through his work he investigates a variety of subjects that deal with history and temporal existence.
The photographs that make up Sugimoto's series are mental images, concepts made possible thanks to the control of the photographic medium and the printing process followed by the author. Time is a central theme in the artist’s work. Using long exposure photography, Sugimoto presents work that demonstrates how the medium can both manipulate and modify reality.
During his career, he has received many prizes and awards. His work is kept in many international museums and institutions such as the Tate Gallery of London, the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.