Hiroshi Sugimoto Analysis

Hiroshi Sugimoto, born in 1948 and raised in Tokyo, Japan, is a famous photographer. Sugimoto’s earliest photos were photographed while he was in high school. He attended Rikkyo University in Tokyo, studying politics and sociology in 1970. Later, in 1974 Sugimoto “retrained as an artist and received a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California” (Wikipedia). His work is influenced by the Dadaist and Surrealist of Marcel Duchamp. Marcel Duchamp was a French, “naturalized American” painter, sculptor, and writer. Dadaism was an art movement (“being anti-war”) in the beginning of the twentieth century (Wikipedia). Surrealists were members of a cultural movement in the early 1920s, which aims were to …show more content…
The entire photo is in black and white and is empty. In this photo, one does not see an audience; the seats are empty. The luminous screen releases light that lights up the architecture around the theater. This architecture can be referenced back to the Baroque where many people went to listen to orchestras; music from Mozart for example. The balconies on both sides contain statues of what looks to be a round figure, maybe something like a garden pot. The balconies are darker than any other part of the theater, which makes it more eye catching in my opinion. The curtains by the screen are only visible due to the light contrasting on the sides or bottom of each curtain. Aside from all the other figures and structures this photograph reveals the ceiling is the most captivating. There are some round shapes, figures with half a sphere in the middle. The round figures are inside an octagon that is shaped thinly by …show more content…
Sugimoto’s main purpose of photography is to embody time itself; hence, by showing all types of theaters he is able to show how time changes the value of things and their purpose. For example, before going to the theater meant excitement, joyfulness, and entertainment. Today on the contrary we hardly go to movie theaters. By all means, we go to theaters just to see the screens -in other words the movies- Sugimoto tries to show how we do not acknowledge the everything else surrounding the screens. Catarina Cowden says, “There are also theaters now that offer comfier seats, dinner with the movie, alcoholic beverages, more and more things that make the ticket price and your experience a serious break in the bank” (Cinemablend). Therefore, theaters do not have the same meaning as when the first movie theater opened in 1905. Theaters went from entertainment and joyfulness to a place of expenses and there are other resources to watching movies on