After he arrived in New York from Japan in the mid ‘70s, photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto visited the American Museum of Natural History and found the animal dioramas ‘utterly fake,’ at least until he peered at them with one eye closed. Training his camera’s single eye on the museum’s taxidermied big cats, hyena, polar bear and other creatures, he carefully adjusted lighting and exposure in each display to create surprisingly convincing pictures of the natural world. Over fifty years after the start of the Diorama series, Sugimoto returned to the museum to make a body of work now on view with some of his earlier photos at Chelsea’s Lisson Gallery. Printed in color on washi paper screens, the photographs complicate Sugitmoto’s representation of ‘reality’ with a format that recalls traditional Japanese painting and prominently features the dioramas’ painted backdrops. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 24th).
