Hiroshi Sugimoto. 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 Notebooks which reveal the secrets of his process, will be held in parallel in the MOMAT Collection Gallery on the museum’s third floor.

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? Extinction is 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.

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

More information: The National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo