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“Hiroshi Sugimoto: Past Tense,” four decades of alum’s work at the Getty Museum through June 8

Polar Bear, 1976, Hiroshi Sugimoto, gelatin silver print. The J. Paul Getty Museum, purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council. © Hiroshi Sugimoto

Polar Bear, 1976, Hiroshi Sugimoto, gelatin silver print. The J. Paul Getty Museum, purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council.
© Hiroshi Sugimoto

Long interested in the “re” part of representation, Hiroshi Sugimoto has, since the 1970s, used photography to investigate how history pervades the present. His first photographs, made while still in high school, captured film footage of Audrey Hepburn as it played in a movie theater.

Now the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles brings together three separate bodies of work by the 1972 Art Center Photography alumnus — four decades’ worth of meticulously crafted prints that inventively reframe objects from the collections of a variety of museums. The exhibition Hiroshi Sugimoto: Past Tense, continuing through June 8, features “Dioramas” (1975–1994), “Portraits” (1999) and his newest series, “Photogenic Drawings” (2008–present).

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