Sugimoto presents buildings in new light

Art Business News, April, 2003

"Architecture," the new body of work by internationally-acclaimed Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, is currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). This series of black-and-white photographs feature subjects like the Eiffel Tower, the Guggenheim Bilbao and Corbusier's Notre-Dame-du-Haut in Ronchamp.

Sugimoto was first commissioned to photograph architecture in 1997 for the MCA exhibition "At the End of the Century: One Hundred Years of Architecture" (1999). The new exhibit represents the first time the series has been shown together. Curator Francesco Bonami said, "Sugimoto has two recurring obsessions: history and time. He once described this work as `architecture after the end of the world,' which is interesting when you consider how he uses time--in long exposures--to literally blur reality and question architecture and its history."

Sugimoto is known for taking years to work through a series of long-exposure works on a variety of themes. Sugimoto has deliberately taken these images out of focus and at unusual angles, isolating the recognizable forms. The blurred forms evoke the passage of time, muting the architectural details and leaving the essence of the building.

The exhibit travels next to the Williamson Gallery at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif.

SHOW FACTS

"Hiroshi Sugimoto: Architecture"

Through June 2

Museum of Contemporary Art

Address: 220 E. Chicago Ave. Chicago, IL

Phone: (312) 280-2660

Web site: www.mcachicago.org