Hiroshi Sugimoto Japanese, 1948- The photographs of Hiroshi Sugimoto explore the connections between modern and ancient worlds. His early interior views of unpeopled cinemas, aglow with the eerie light of a projected film, suggest modern-day shrines. With similar intentions, he began to photograph in museums, particularly exhibits that featured life-size taxidermy animals and wax human figures. Since 1977 Sugimoto has traveled the world to photograph barren seascapes. These subjects, which have become his hallmark, are shown with subtle variations in time of day, horizon line, and weather conditions, achieving from a distance the effect of a color-field painting by encouraging viewers to lose themselves in the haze. The black-and-white format, however, is a continual reminder of both the actuality of the subject and its perilous environmental state. As a child, Sugimoto (born in Tokyo) took up photography with a fervor. He graduated from Saint Paul's University, Tokyo (B.A., 1970), leaving Japan for the United States to study at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles (B.F.A., 1972). In 1974 he moved to New York City, opening an antiques business before launching full-time into freelance photography. In addition to a one-person exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art (1989), Sugimoto has shown his work at the Palais des Beaux Arts, Charlerol, Belgium (1993), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1993, and tour), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1995). His awards include a New York Creative Artists Public Service Grant (1977) and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1980) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1982). Sugimoto lives in New York and Tokyo. A.W.