ED2011 3/5 Reviews ED2011 Art Reviews

Hiroshi Sugimoto (Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art)

By | Published on Friday 19 August 2011

The Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto fancies himself as a modern-day Henry Fox Talbot, and you’re likely to leave this exhibition knowing more about the nineteenth-century pioneer of photography. The exhibition consists of Sugimoto’s recent series, which have little in common besides Talbot’s lingering spectre. The former, following his discoveries, is Sugimoto’s experimentations with electrical discharges on photographic film. These dramatic black prints, seared with light, resemble frozen lightning flashes. For the latter, Sugimoto acquired rare Talbot paper negatives and developed these into large-scale prints. It is to this master that we must give credit for the interest of this exhibition, which, despite the poetic and haunting beauty of the works, gives a disjointed overview of Sugimoto’s practice.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 4 Aug – 25 Sept, 10.00am – 6.00pm (5.00pm from 1 Sept), £7.00, eifpp55.
tw rating 3/5
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