"Sea of Buddha"

Program

BFA 74 Photography and Imaging

Influenced by Dadaist and Surrealist theory, Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto crafts mysterious scenes from vernacular subject matter, while melding contemplative elements from the East with cultural motifs from the West. His ongoing subjects include dioramas, theaters, Buddhist sculptures and seascapes. A supreme craftsman, Hiroshi Sugimoto uses a 19th-century-style, large-format camera, to create his exquisite black-and-white photography, giving insight into how the medium can both obscure and alter reality. In 2001, Sugimoto received the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, and was the subject of a mid-career retrospective in 2006 organized by the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. His work is held in the collections of the Tate Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of New York, among many others.