Hiroshi Sugimoto

Since the 1970s Hiroshi Sugimoto has worked on his Theaters series, in which he photographs auditoriums of American cinemas during showings.The exposure time used for the photograph corresponds with the projection time of the film, allowing him to capture the entire film in a single shot. What remains visible of the films time-compressed, individual images is the bright screen of the cinema, which illuminates the architecture of the space. Says Sugimoto ‘One night I had an idea while I was at the movies: to photograph the film itself. I tried to imagine photographing an entire feature film with my camera. I could already picture the projection screen making itself visible as a white rectangle. In my imagination, this would appear as a glowing, white rectangle; it would come forward from the projection surface and illuminate the entire theater. This idea struck me as being very interesting, mysterious, and even religious.’