Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto is presenting his first major survey exhibition in Southeast Asia, titled Hiroshi Sugimoto: Form Is Emptiness, at Singapore Art Museum (SAM) at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Running from May 29 to October 4, 2026, the exhibition brings together more than 60 works from 11 series alongside 14 rare fossil specimens from the artist’s personal collection.
Born in Tokyo in 1948, Sugimoto has spent five decades developing a multidisciplinary practice spanning photography, sculpture, installation, and spatial design. Consequently, the exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of his ongoing investigations into time, memory and human consciousness.
Deeply influenced by Buddhist philosophy, the exhibition takes its title from the Heart Sutra and its proposition that “form is emptiness”. Accordingly, the concept suggests that material reality remains shaped by perception and circumstance rather than fixed permanence.
Designed by Sugimoto himself, the exhibition unfolds as a mandala, the geometric representation of the universe found in Buddhist and Hindu traditions. As a result, visitors encounter interconnected pathways that echo the cyclical rhythms of nature and life, creating a contemplative environment that examines the relationship between presence and absence.
Iconic Photography Series and New Works Anchor the Survey
The exhibition features several of Sugimoto’s best-known bodies of work. Among them is Seascapes, an ongoing series begun in 1980 that reduces the world to the elemental relationship between sea and sky through precisely centered horizon lines.
Meanwhile, Theaters compresses the duration of an entire film into a single photograph using long-exposure techniques. Therefore, each glowing image draws parallels between cinematic time and human existence.
In addition, the Opticks series revisits the experiments of Isaac Newton. Through subtle gradations hidden within white light, the works dissolve recognizable forms into immersive fields of color while questioning the foundations of visual perception.
Beyond his camera-based practice, the exhibition introduces Spacescape (2024), a folding screen depicting the Earth and Moon in orbit. Developed in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the University of Tokyo and Sony, the work expands Sugimoto’s dialogue between science and art.
Visitors can also experience Brush Impression, Heart Sutra (2023), a monumental installation composed of 288 gelatin silver prints. Created by “writing” the sutra on photographic paper with fixer in near darkness, the installation transforms language into an abstract visual meditation.
Fossils and Video Works Extend Sugimoto’s Exploration of Deep Time
The survey also includes Accelerated Buddha (1997–2017), Sugimoto’s first video work. Furthermore, a selection of fossil specimens highlights another dimension of his practice.
Sugimoto considers these ancient objects “pre-photography time-recording devices”, positioning them as physical records of existence that extend far beyond human memory. Consequently, the fossils deepen the exhibition’s central inquiry into time and perception.
Through photography, moving image, installation and collected artifacts, Hiroshi Sugimoto: Form Is Emptiness presents a meditative examination of the visible world and the forces that shape it.
Exhibition Details
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Form Is Emptiness
Venue: Singapore Art Museum at Tanjong Pagar Distripark
Address: 39 Keppel Road, #01-02, Singapore 089065
Dates: May 29 – October 4, 2026
Tickets are available through the exhibition’s dedicated webpage.