Portraits of famous as figures of wax

By LINDA HERRICK

If you look closely at the pearls, you can see a reflection of me working with the camera. There are hundreds of Sugimoto self-portraits hidden in the pearls."

So claims Japanese-American photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto in a catalogue essay accompanying his eerily hypnotic Portraits, a series of large-format, black and white studies of wax figures of famous people which opens at the New Gallery on Saturday.

Sugimoto's pearl-reflection claim is impossible to verify; it could be ruinous to the eyes to peer too closely at every single pearl and jewel bedecking the series' earlier historical figures, such as Henry VIII and his harem of wives.

Portraits covers 2000 years of time and power, from the astonishing 7.5m-wide Last Supper, through the English monarchy from Henry to Queen Elizabeth II, and to contemporary figures such as Yasser Arafat and Emperor Hirohito.

The series, commissioned by the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, has come to New Zealand via the Guggenheim Museum SoHo.

It's a rare chance to see the work of the conceptual photographer who has previously become known worldwide for his serial images of theatres, modern architecture and seascapes.

For Portraits, Sugimoto used mostly models from Madame Tussaud's London Waxworks, shooting them against dramatically lit black backdrops to emulate the format of traditional portrait painting. He discovered The Last Supper figures in a wax museum in a small coastal resort in Japan.

As anyone who has visited Madame Tussaud's will have observed, most of the museum's figures are hyper-real, too intent on emulating the subject to convince. There is always the feel of a B-grade movie about them. But through lighting, focus and close-up, Sugimoto elevates the tack into something more dramatic and formal.

Wax figures may memorialise only the "rich and famous and royalty", as Sugimoto says, "but to me all wax figures are created equal.

"The peak of one's life - what is most memorable or what is most remembered - is waxed, perhaps idealised, then waxed. I am sure that some of Henry VIII's wives look better at Madame Tussaud's than they did in real life."

* Sugimoto, Portraits, New Gallery, September 7-November 10.