Details

Title

Lightning Fields 182

Artist/Maker

Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japanese, born 1948)

Date

2009

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Dimensions

Contact the museum for more information

Credit

Purchase through funds provided by patrons of Collectors Evening 2012

Accession #

2012.3

On View

Currently not on view

In a series of experiments, Hiroshi Sugimoto applied charges of electricity directly to unexposed film to create images without the use of camera or lens. His process embodies the medium of photography at its most elemental: Exposing a photo-sensitive material to light, creating an image that is chemically fixed from fading. The resulting photograph is rich in tonality, its electric shapes abstract while also resembling the basic structures on which natural forms are built. Here, the trace of an electric charge sweeps across the composition, reading in turns like the textures of a human hand, the upward-reaching tentacles of a fern, and the stark branches of a tree.

Image Copyright

© (c) Hiroshi Sugimoto

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