Hiroshi Sugimoto: Conceptual Forms
Gallery installation view
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Helicoid: Minimal Surface, 2004
Gelatin silver print, 59 × 47 ¼ inches (150 × 120 cm), edition of 5
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Diagonal Clebsch surface, cubic with 27 lines, 2004
Gelatin silver print, 59 × 47 ¼ inches (150 × 120 cm), edition of 5
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Triangular cam, 2004
Gelatin silver print, 59 × 47 ¼ inches (150 × 120 cm), edition of 5
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Internal gear, 2004
Gelatin silver print, 59 × 47 ¼ inches (150 × 120 cm), edition of 5
"These machines and models were created without any artistic intention. This is what motivated me to produce this series of photographs and title them 'Conceptual Forms.' Art is possible without artistic intention and can be better without It. "
– Hiroshi Sugimoto
Gagosian Gallery, London is pleased to present Hiroshi Sugimoto's new series entitled "Conceptual Forms." The exhibition features a selection of twenty-four large-scale black and white photographs of mathematical models, as well as mechanical machine tools.
The Mathematical forms - stereometric models in plaster – were created in the 19th century to provide students with a visual understanding of complex trigonometric functions. The Mechanical forms – machine models including gears, pumps and regulators - are industrial tools used to demonstrate basic movements of modern machinery.
Sugimoto began working on this series as a response to "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass)" by Marcel Duchamp. In Sugimoto's photographs, the fluid curvilinear forms of the mathematical models (those objects reminiscent of the "Bride") and the rigid, sharply delineated forms of the mechanical models (those mechanics associated with the "Bachelors") become abstract sculpture, blurring the line between science and knowledge, and their relationship to art.
The Summer 2026 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Ellen Gallagher’s Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish (2026) on the cover.
In this video, Jenny Saville sits down inside her first major exhibition in Venice to discuss how the great Venetian artists of the past and the city’s heritage influence her work. The show brings together more than thirty canvases and works on paper from the 1990s to the present, tracing the development of her practice, which is deeply rooted in the history of painting.
On the occasion of his exhibition The Reflection of Bronze at Gagosian, New York, Giuseppe Penone and curator Adam D. Weinberg sit down to discuss the genesis of, and their collaboration on, the show.
Ahead of Alex Israel’s exhibition of four new Fin sculptures at Gagosian, London, the artist spoke with Susan Casey, author of The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean (2010), about the ocean, surfing, and Los Angeles.
On July 9, Simon Hantaï: the last studio opens at Gagosian, Gstaad. Curated by Anne Baldassari, the show comprises sixteen of the artist’s dernier atelier (last studio) paintings of 1982–85. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, copublished by Gagosian and Skira, which features an essay by Baldassari and an extensive portfolio of previously unpublished photographs by Édouard Boubat. Here, we share the introductory chapter from the publication.
An exhibition at Gagosian, Hong Kong, brings together three of James Turrell’s Glasswork pieces along with site plans, photographs, and models of his Skyspaces and Roden Crater. Here, Alice Godwin explores the history of the Glassworks and their relationship to the artist’s wider practice.
On April 16, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, opened the first midcareer survey of Derrick Adams’s multidisciplinary practice. Covering over twenty years of work, the exhibition, titled View Master, brings together the artist’s painting, sculpture, collage, performance, and video, as well as a vibrant new commission created for the museum’s façade. Ahead of the opening, Adams met with Tessa Bachi Haas, cocurator of the survey, to discuss his formative experiences with television, the impact of his work in arts education on his practice, and the importance of taking a more complex, more joyful, and more expansive approach to Black American life and culture.
Adam D. Weinberg has been working with Giuseppe Penone on an exhibition of the artist’s new sculptures, The Reflection of Bronze, that opens at Gagosian, New York, on April 22. The works explore the character and possibilities of bronze. Here, Weinberg considers Penone’s enduring engagement with the alloy and addresses the conceptual underpinnings of the exhibition’s three-room structure.
Jeff Koons tells Alison McDonald about his appreciation for the pioneering artist and thinker Marcel Duchamp.
The Singular Experience at Gagosian’s Le Bourget gallery is the largest exhibition of Walter De Maria’s work in France in several decades. Organized by Donna De Salvo, senior adjunct curator at Dia Art Foundation, the exhibition marks the first time De Maria’s final sculpture, Truck Trilogy (2011–17), is being shown outside of the United States. Here, De Salvo speaks with artist Lucy Raven about her evolving kinship with De Maria and more.
Laura Bruni writes about a major exhibition celebrating the work of the British sculptor Henry Moore at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London.
The exhibition Pomellato, Le Joaillier Révolutionnaire opened at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, on June 24. The Italian jewelry house’s trailblazing advertising campaigns—created by some of the most consequential names in photography—act as the narrative arc of the exhibition, curated by Alba Cappellieri. Here, Sarah Godfrey tracks Pomellato’s history, speaks with Cappellieri about what drew her to this project, and examines some of the key photographs from the show.
