In person, Hiroshi Sugimoto resists the descriptions that apply to his photography; he is not dour or somber but affable, even irreverent. His February 16 onstage conversation with Hirshhorn Museum chief curator Kerry Brougher saw Brougher playing the straight man to Sugimoto, who cut up on subjects ranging from politics to the '60s culture he embraced as a young photographer in California. On the West Coast, the Japanese-born artist began capturing time on film, a strategy he came to develop in subsequent decades in New York City. (You can listen to that lecture via podcast.)
An elegant retrospective at the Horn of Hirsh—curated by Brougher, in concert with David Eliott of the Mori Art Museum—highlights several distinct subject areas that emerge in Sugimoto's work. These areas of concentration might be better described as "phases" or "periods," to suggest their overarching theme: the passage of time.
