Theaters

Hiroshi Sugimoto (1948)

Long-exposure photographs condensing entire films into a single luminous frame, unveiling theater architecture.

Description

Hiroshi Sugimoto’s project Theaters, initiated in the late 1970s shortly after his relocation to the United States, explores the relationship between photography, cinema, and the passage of time. Primarily set within old American movie palaces, drive-in theaters, and later European opera houses, Sugimoto employs long-exposure techniques, capturing entire films within a single photographic frame. The result—a luminous white screen illuminating intricate architectural interiors—reveals the hidden structures of theaters otherwise cloaked in darkness.

Emerging during a critical period when traditional photography's perceived objectivity was being widely questioned, Sugimoto's Theaters directly engages with this cultural shift. By reducing cinema to its core elements—light and duration—he transforms entire films into singular luminous compositions that invite reflection on time and perception. Each photograph simultaneously preserves and erases the film's story, highlighting the ephemeral nature of cinema and its role in cultural memory.

Visually, the project is marked by meticulous composition and dramatic contrasts. Each photograph centers around an illuminated rectangle, starkly contrasted by detailed architectural features rendered through prolonged exposure. Sugimoto's choice of black-and-white gelatin silver prints enhances a mood of quiet contemplation, nostalgia, and historical reflection. The absence of human presence adds to a somber, introspective atmosphere, further emphasizing the stillness amid implied motion.

Sugimoto’s technical process involves large-format cameras—primarily 8x10—and custom equipment designed to prevent film movement during extended exposures. He meticulously hand-develops prints, reinforcing his commitment to photographic craft and precision.

From its debut in Dioramas, Theaters, Seascapes at Sonnabend Gallery, New York (1988), Theaters moved to the first full publication Theaters (2000), then to major retrospectives—Hiroshi Sugimoto at the Mori Art Museum, Hirshhorn, and de Young (2005–2007)—followed by a site-specific installation at Pace Gallery, New York (2016) and inclusion in Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine at the Hayward Gallery, UCCA, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (2023–2024). Related honors for Sugimoto include the Hasselblad Award (2001), Praemium Imperiale (2009), and Japan’s Medal with Purple Ribbon (2010).

Behind the work

Sugimoto conceived Theaters while working on Dioramas, experiencing a “near-hallucinatory vision” at the American Museum of Natural History. He wondered, “What if an entire movie were captured in a single frame?” The answer—"a shining screen"—sparked his long-exposure experimentations, leading to Theaters.

Sugimoto's motivation for photographing Italian theatres, built before the invention of cinema, was to explore the origins of the architectural forms that later influenced the design of American movie theatres from the 1920s, which were the subject of his earlier Theaters works. He views the theatre as a place for a collective 'religious' experience.

Sugimoto’s love for theatres began in 1950s Tokyo, where he watched films with his mother, captivated by both the movies and the architecture. His fascination led him to bring a camera into a cinema, experimenting with shutter speeds to freeze Audrey Hepburn’s image on screen. Years later, he rediscovered his negatives from Roman Holiday, revealing an early technical curiosity that foreshadowed his later work.

In a later expansion of Theaters, Sugimoto documented the decay of grand movie palaces, some left abandoned. In some instances, he projected films in these ruined spaces, using a white sheet as a makeshift screen against the crumbling interiors.

In 2015, while travelling through Italy photographing theatres, Sugimoto learned the story of the Tenshō Embassy, which involved four young Japanese men visiting Europe in 1582. This discovery inspired a separate project where he photographed landmark structures and artworks they likely saw in Italy.

Quotes by the photographer

"When I take a picture, I want to stop time and observe phenomena. Things keep moving, the world keeps moving – it’s difficult to see what’s going on behind it. To be sure, you have to stop time, stop the world and then see and observe the phenomenon. […] Photography is a very good tool to stop time."

"Every morning I remember my dreams – but then five minutes later it goes. But sometimes I remember very clear, very impressive dreams – and sometimes I make a note and it’s the source of my art… My Theater series started in 1976 and, like Martin Luther King, I had a dream! I had a vision of a theatre with a shining screen. I was asking myself, what would it be if I exposed photography for an entire film? The answer was not a word – it was a vision. A kind of religious, concentrated light, splashing out of the screen."

"I’ve always been guided by some kind of force, I don’t know what it is. At least I never get tired of my art. It is not called a god – but some kind of force is guiding me, I strongly feel."

"Different movies give different brightnesses. If it's an optimistic story, I usually end up with a bright screen; if it's a sad story, it's a dark screen. Occult movie? Very dark."

"I wanted to photograph a movie, with all its appearance of life and motion, in order to stop it again… I must use photography as a means to shut away the ghosts resurrected by the excess of photographic afterimages."

"My dream was to capture 170,000 photographs on a single frame of film. The image I had inside my brain was of a gleaming white screen inside a dark movie theater. The light created by an excess of 170,000 exposures would be the embodiment or manifestation of something awe-inspiring and divine."

"Usually a photographer hangs around and captures the moment, but I created my own illusion that doesn’t exist in reality. It’s just my own imagination — but I get to make my imagination visible."

"The simplest forms have authority, like a blank white light. And how do you photograph that? You need a framework to make it visible. But this is not simply white light; it is the result of too much information."

Tags and context

Credits: Violeta Apostolova (image research); Elinor Hemedes (data research). Suggest an Edit