The photography of Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto captures uncertainty, ruin and empty splendour

Hiroshi Sugimoto, installation view, Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2024. Image courtesy the artist and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, © the artist, photograph: Zan Wimberley

In the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto, photography is a type of embalmment, a tactic of preservation, and an instrument of experimentation.

Born in 1948, Japanese artist Sugimoto works with photography, site-specific sculpture and architecture. Time Machine at the Museum of Contemporary Art surveys over five decades of his work. The exhibition highlights Sugimoto’s conceptual approach to images and his continual investigation of the photographic form.