September-October Highlights

Hiroshi Sugimoto: “Hall of Thirty-Three Bays.” 1995.

The Smart Museum of Art
“Hiroshi Sugimoto: Sea of Buddha”
Thursday, Oct. 2 through Sunday, Jan. 4, 2004
10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday; and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
The Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. 702-0200. Free.
In 1995 after years of lobbying for permission, acclaimed artist Hiroshi Sugimoto was allowed to photograph inside Kyoto’s famed 13th-century Buddhist temple Sanjusangendo. Sugimoto arrived at dawn to capture the light illuminating 1,000 statues of the bodhisattva Kannon, an enlightened being of boundless compassion. Sugimoto’s richly detailed black-and-white images frame row upon row of Kannon’s slightly varied faces. This suite of meditative images immerses the viewer in what Sugimoto has called a “sea of Buddha.” An opening reception for “Hiroshi Sugimoto: Sea of Buddha” will begin at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, and Smart Museum Curator Stephanie Smith and Joel Snyder, Professor in Art History and the College, will introduce the exhibition.

Suzan Hanson and Herbert Perry in The Sound of a Voice

Court Theatre
The Sound of a Voice
Thursday, Sept. 25 through Sunday, Nov. 2
5535 S. Ellis Ave. 753-4472. http://www.courttheatre.org. $26-$50.
Oscar-nominated composer Philip Glass (A.B.,’56) joins forces with acclaimed playwright David Henry Hwang for this music theatre piece based on Japanese ghost stories. The first act unfolds as an aging Japanese warrior arrives at the home of a mysterious woman, whom he has come either to court or assassinate. In the second act, an elderly Japanese writer visits a brothel for men nearing the end of their lives that provides them with ways to relive their youth. Both tales elegantly explore how intimacy is achieved between people who live in seclusion.

Photons generated by shining a laser beam on a type of crystal

58th Annual Arthur Holly Compton Lectures
“Quantum Optics: From the Possible to the Actual”
11 a.m. Saturdays, Oct. 4 through Dec. 6
Room 106, Kersten Physics Teacher Center, 5720 S. Ellis Ave.
http://jfi.uchicago.edu/~pelton/compton.html. Free.
This series of nine lectures will address how scientists in modern times have some control over light and its interaction with atoms. Matthew Pelton, a Research Associate in the James Franck Institute, will deliver the lectures. Named after Chicago physicist and Nobel laureate Arthur Holly Compton, these lectures aim to make science accessible to a general audience. There will be no lecture on Saturday, Nov. 29.

Human Rights Program
“The Enemy Alien Files: Hidden Stories of World War II”
Tuesday, Oct. 7 through Tuesday, Nov. 14, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 1-4 p.m. Sunday.
Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave. 834-0957. Free.
Over 60 years ago, when the United States entered World War II, thousands of Japanese, German and Italian immigrants in the United States and Latin American faced arrest, forced relocation, internment and deportation. “The Enemy Alien Files” combines rare photographs, oral history excerpts and documents to examine how wartime fears, anti-immigrant attitudes and racism affected these people. The exhibition also explores parallels with the post-9/11 experiences in the U.S. Arab, Muslim and South Asian communities. There will be an opening reception at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 13, featuring a lecture by David Cole, Georgetown University Law School.