Timescapes

The beauty of photography is the ability to capture a moment, frozen in time, and hold it still forever. What happens when the conventions of photography are destabilized in multiple ways to produce an image of time or of extreme focus? The work of Japanese photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto, challenges the formal and traditional conventions of photo taking and photo making by manipulating the functions of the camera lens to render visible new scenarios of architecture. Sugimoto’s photographs question the images’ temporal make up and the subject’s relationship to the object, ultimately re-imagining the connection to memorable events, places and landscapes. The underlying factor for this connection is the architecture within in which Sugimoto operates in and on. Oscillating between reality and fantasy, Sugimoto presents us with fantastically real architectures and moments that we as viewers perceive as fictitious, unreal spaces, and vice versa. Through reduction and separation of the subject/ object, Sugimoto’s process and practice questions the role of time and perception is in our understanding of the built world around us.

Spring 2016

Full text available upon request