Hiroshi Sugimoto
2019
Gelatin-silver print
149.2 x 119.4 cm
Winsing Arts Collection

Hiroshi Sugimoto
2019
Gelatin-silver print
149.2 x 119.4 cm
Winsing Arts Collection
In 1976, Hiroshi Sugimoto set up his camera in the back of a New York cinema, setting the exposure time to match the length of the film that was about to begin. The resulting photograph compressed the entire film into a single, still image of a glowing white screen. ‘To watch a two-hour movie,’ the artist notes, ‘is simply to look at 172,800 photographic afterimages. I wanted to photograph a movie, with all its appearance of life and motion, in order to stop it again.’
The brilliant white screens at the centre of these photographs function as their only light source, illuminating the imposing architecture of American movie palaces built in the early 20th century. Amid eerily empty theatres, they seem alternately to suggest a glaring void or a radiant presence, as if alluding to a spiritual aspect of the collective ritual of movie-going.
Sugimoto went on to explore this approach within a variety of cinematic and theatrical settings: Drive-Ins (1993) captures the light trails of planes and stars behind outdoor screens during the photographs’ long exposure; Opera Houses (2014) depicts the historic European theatres that inspired the grandiose decor of their American imitations; most recently, Abandoned Theaters (2015) exposes the unfortunate fate and slow ruin of the classic American movie house.
