Hiroshi Sugimoto at Lisson Gallery – Artillery

17 January 2025

The entrance to Hiroshi Sugimoto’s exhibition at Lisson Gallery, “Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form” is partially blocked by a curved wooden wall. The wall commands recognition, separating the exhibition from the outside world. It immediately invites the visitor to become a conscious, active participant, as if asking us to wait behind the scenes for our cue to enter center stage. At the very least, the entrance articulates a request for commitment on the part of the viewer and establishes certain visual rules and sensorial dynamics. Beyond active participation, the massive installation indicates that the space will defy our expectations.

The show marks the return of the renowned conceptual photographer, artist, and architect to Los Angeles for the first time in over a decade. Sugimoto, who was born in Tokyo and graduated from LA’s Art Center College of Design in 1972, uses cameras and photographic processes to explore time, light, and the relationships between truth, fiction, and vision. In past bodies of work spanning a decades-long career, Sugimoto documented dioramas at New York’s American Museum of Natural History and movie theaters across the country; he presented wax figures isolated from their museum context in ethereal, dramatic portraits; he captured bursts of electrical energy on dry plates in his darkroom; and he photographed horizon lines worldwide, framing cloudless skies and sharp lines as an origin point for his own consciousness. The artist’s in-depth investigations of visual perception, natural elements and photographic properties articulate a concern with collective and personal histories and the markings of time, as well as the limitations and possibilities of human perception.

Read more of Dr. Rotem Rozenthal's review in Artillery here.