Comprising more than 80 works, History of History juxtaposed Sugimoto’s own photographs—selected from the artist’s well-known series of seascapes, natural history dioramas, and wax museum figures—with an enormous range of geological specimens and traditional Japanese and ritual artifacts drawn from his private collection. His preoccupation with the passage of time and spirituality took on concrete, multiple forms as he placed his photographs in the contexts of the history of Japanese art, civilization, and ritual.