Hiroshi Sugimoto has gone back to the source. The Tokyo-born, New York–based artist is currently exhibiting large-scale prints he’s created from delicate paper negatives produced in the 1830s and ’40s by one of the pioneers of photography. British inventor William Henry Fox Talbot developed the calotype process and used it to create arresting still lifes, portraits, and landscapes—images he described as “drawings with light.” Working from Talbot’s fragile negatives, Sugimoto has painstakingly reproduced Talbot’s images in unprecedented detail. The resulting prints are works of both archaeology and art. At Fraenkel Gallery, 49 Geary St., San Francisco, (415) 981-2661. Through Feb. 25. Each work is $60,000.
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