Hiroshi Sugimoto

The Serpentine Gallery will present the first solo exhibition of works by the Japanese-born artist Hiroshi Sugimoto in a public gallery in London. For his exhibition at the Serpentine, Sugimoto has responded to the space, light and architecture particular to the Gallery, creating a meditative environment in which to view a selection of photographs from three important bodies of work created since 1990: the signature Seascapes, the recent Pine Landscapes (2001), and the installation In Praise of Shadows (1999). The exhibition will include the first presentation in the UK of a new work by Sugimoto, the multi-panelled, ten-metre-long photograph North Pacific Ocean (2002) taken in Ohkurosaki, Japan. The Seascapes depict the meeting of the sea and sky, referred to by the artist as the timeless elements 'water' and 'air'. This series has been central to Sugimoto's work since 1980. The individual works were photographed at remote locations around the world, varying according to different times of day and weather conditions. The Seascapes invite reflection on the passage of time and the Sublime. They require the viewer to notice subtle visual distinctions, as in the group Night Seascapes included in the Serpentine exhibition, which appear at first as dark voids and then reveal wave patterns and starlight as the viewer studies them. The exhibition at the Serpentine will feature the Pine Landscapes (2001), beguiling large-scale photographs, taken in Tokyo’s Imperial Gardens, of a revered symbol in Japanese culture. Also in the exhibition is the installation In Praise of Shadows (1999), which consists of a lit candle and a photograph of a candle burning over an evening. By using long exposures of up to five hours, Sugimoto records on film every flicker of the flame. Over his thirty-year career, Sugimoto has made black-and-white photographs that consistently merge a rigorous conceptual approach with meticulous craftsmanship. He has received significant critical acclaim for his works, which viewed in succession reveal subtle differences as well as point to the processes by which they were made. Inspired by classical photography, Sugimoto uses a traditional wooden box camera to render the real world both abstract and infinite. Born in Tokyo in 1948, Sugimoto read sociology and politics before moving to Los Angeles to study photography at the Art Center College of Design. His major international solo exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2003), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2001), and Deutsche Guggenheim (2000-01). He was awarded the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography in 2001 and short-listed for the Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize in 1998. In 1974 he moved to New York, and he now lives and works between there and Tokyo. Pressetext

Hiroshi Sugimoto