Last Updated on June 16, 2026
Sugimoto’s Time Machine is serene and sublime
London and the Southbank Centre are a hub of activity at the beginning of October: the London Film Festival is in full swing at the BFI and Frieze London is rolling into town for the weekend. The Hayward Gallery’s new show Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine is therefore an apt choice – an experimental fine art photographer using analogue methods that are durational by nature, some exposures lasting as long as a feature film.
The exhibition begins at the beginning, with a series of large black and white images of dioramas from the Natural History Museum. These scenes, featuring stuffed animals in their natural (albeit painted) habitats are where Sugimoto’s artistic journey began in the 70’s.
Dioramas and waxworks become more lifelike through his lens: a certain flattening takes place meaning that instead of the staged stuffed animals set against a painted backdrop, the viewer here sees a live animal in its natural environment, in all its depth.
Here, the real and fake are reversed. Sugimoto is able to bring his subjects to life, not in a macabre or unnatural way, but sensitively and sincerely. A series of portraits of waxworks from Madame Tussauds are hyper realistic against a simple black backdrop. Depicting royals, artists and political leaders in an almost Irving Penn style, the lifeless waxworks exude personality and life. It would be curious to see if Sugimoto had been creating this series today, would his models be Kylie Jenner and Taylor Swift rather than Oscar Wilde and Fidel Castro.
Next, Sugimoto turns his eye to the cinema with a series of theatre images. Made by setting up a large format camera and exposing the negative for the duration of a specific film, these images have an exquisite stillness to them. The series began with very ornate theatres, before looking at open air cinemas, opera houses and abandoned theatres. These images are presented in a very dim gallery and spotlit, giving the impression that the screen is glowing. Utter serenity.
The upstairs galleries in Time Machine feature more abstract works, showcasing Sugimoto’s scientific bent. There is the Lightning series, created by running an electric current across the unexposed film, creating what looks like lightning. The Optiks are the only colour photographs, made by splitting visible light with a prism and photographing the results with a Polaroid camera. Sugimoto uses light as his pigment in these painterly, Rothko-like compositions.
Photography is having a bit of a moment: the Barbican’s Re/Sisters opened last week, but with a very different energy. Whilst the group show Re/Sisters is exuberant and expansive, Sugimoto’s Time Machine is cool and serene. The two shows sit comfortably within the same medium with neither treading on the other’s toes.
Sugimoto’s images of mathematical models are textural and rich, showcasing the artistry of the equations noted beside them. The blurred architectural images are puzzling but not unpleasant and hint at the artist’s architectural practice. Scale is very important, the photographs are large enough that the viewer can enter into the scene and really feel their physicality.
The only section that doesn’t hit the mark is the Chamber of Horrors, downstairs from the main gallery. These works are also based on Madame Tussaud’s waxworks, this time those of serial killers. The photographs are the smallest in the exhibition by a long way, and hidden in a corridor – understandable due to the taboo subject matter, but it feels like a curatorial idea that works better on paper than in reality.
Sugimoto’s beautiful Seascapes are bathed in cool natural light on this sunny autumn day. Presented side by side and arranged from dark to light, they are sublime in their simplicity. Begun in the 80’s, this series looks at what has remained most constant through human and pre-human history: the sea. The subject is photographed without any distraction, just sea meeting sky, the two sometimes merging.
Time Machine is a wonderfully restful tonic to the outside hustle and bustle of the city this time of year. Hiroshi Sugimoto proves himself a master of the camera, at 75 still exploring and experimenting with the medium. He creates timeless work that is invigorating yet hauntingly still. It is a joy to experience what it is like to see life through his lens.
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine
Hayward Gallery,
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road
London SE1 8XX
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