April 6, 2008 at 17:25 · Filed under Award, Exhibition, Photographer, Publication
Just a short post after a long hiatus, but I hope to post more in the upcoming months.
I know I wrote a few times about Rinko Kawauchi - with whom I had a very pleasant dinner in Tokyo a few weeks ago -, but since this is the first time that her famous series “Utatane” from 2001 is exhibited in a solo show outside Japan, I thought it is worth to mention it.
Rinko Kawauchi “Uatane”, at Art77, presented by Antoine de Vilmorin (until May 3).
As far as I know there has not been much written about the series and book “Utatane” (in contrary to “Aila”) and which has lead to Rinko’s national and international breakthrough. For “Utatane” (and for her book “Hanabi” [Fireworks]) the artist received the prestigious Kimura Ihei Award and the book was included in the “The Photobook: A History. Vol. 2″ by Parr and Badger. Badger wrote a very interesting comment on Rinko and “Utatane” in the photobook anthology:
Just when it seems that everything has been photographed, in every possible way, along comes a photographer, whose work is so original that the medium is renewed. Such a photographer is Rinko Kawauchi, who makes simple, lyrical pictures, so fresh and unusual that they are difficult to describe or classify.
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October 18, 2007 at 0:04 · Filed under Photographer, Photography Market, Publication
When I went to Japan in the second half of the 1990s for to research Modern Japanese photography I was fortunate to meet the photographer Eiji Ina who introduced me to the contemporary photography scene in Tokyo. At that time it was nearly impossible for foreigners without a well developed ability to read Japanese (especially names) to find out what was going on in Tokyo, since there were no English sources neither about exhibitions nor galleries available and Eiji Ina was so kind to take me to photography events like exhibition openings at galleries and museums or to the award ceremony of the Kimura Ihei Award. He also introduced me to the photographer Mikiko Hara, whom I met for the first time in 1998 at the opening of her exhibition “Agnus Dei” at Nikon Salon, Ginza/Tokyo.
A year later I saw Mikiko’s work again in the group exhibition about young Japanese women photographers “Private Room II” at Art Tower Mito. Curated by Kohtaro Iizawa this exhibition was a kind of assessment of the “onna no ko shashinka” (girly photographer) phenomenon which had already faded at that time. I felt that Mikikos work was misplaced in the girly photographer context, since she was a few years older than these ‘girlies’ like Hiromix and Yurie Nagashima. Also Hiromix’s and Nagashima’s main aim was to use the camera for to talk about themselves and to deal with their own identity. Mikiko’s topic is different, she does not speak about herself:
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February 11, 2007 at 1:25 · Filed under Photographer, Publication
A few weeks after reading the interview with Joe Nishizawa in Pingmag about his book “Deep Inside” I ordered the book at Amazon.jp. When the book arrived I was surprised to get a completely different book from the seller and I realized that I had mixed up the titles of the books “Deep Inside” by Joe Nishizawa and “Japan Underground” by Hideaki Uchiyama.
Both books deal with the vast and complex underground constructions which provide essential life lines and life support for Japanese mega cities like Tokyo or Osaka. And it seems that this topic is of great interest for Japanese photographers as well as for the Japanese audience. Hideaki Uchiyama already published three volumes of “Japan Underground” (2000, 2003 and 2005) and his first volume was reprinted last year, and Nishizawa’s book created a remarkable buzz in the (international) blogsphere due to the interview in Pingmag. But the best known series about this topic is from a third photographer, Naoya Hatakeyama, who published his series “Underground” in 2000, the year when Nishizawa published his first volume.
Naoya Hatakeyama: “Underground”
I look around but my sight is completely shut out. No light stimulus. My eyes are open but seem closed. Yet my eyeballs keep moving, trying harder to look and see and see, in vain. [...]
I go down to the stream of central Tokyo, surrounded by concrete. This is a humanless world. Only five meters below the ground, it seems to me light-years away. [...]
The mold that grows in a limestone cave hundreds of kilometers away from Tokoy grew, too, in the underground darkness upstream of this river. Is it still there, I wonder? Reflecting my light, it shined like glassware. But it remains unaware of how beautiful it is.
Quote: Naoyama Hatakeyama, “Underground”
Hideaki Uchiyama: “Japan Underground”
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October 10, 2006 at 22:43 · Filed under Exhibition, Photographer, Publication
On occasion of the exhibition “Shomei Tomatsu - Skin of a Nation” at the Fotomuseum Winterthur, the Museum hosts the symposium
“Photography and Lifestyle in Japan from 1945 until Today”
on Friday October 27.
I am invited to give a lecture on “Contemporary Japanese Photography and Lifestyle” and my talk is schedule just before the party. :-)
By the way, during the party there will be a slide show arranged by the Mariko Takeuchi, Tokyo: “20 new Japanese Photographers”
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September 20, 2006 at 23:58 · Filed under Exhibition, Photographer, Publication
It’s not the first time that I am mentioning Rinko Kawauchi in my blog, but this has a special reason.
I think it was 2003 when Markus Schaden, my local photobook dealer showed me a small photobook by a Japanese women photographer whom I had not heard of at that time. It was “Utatane” (Siesta) by Rinko Kawauchi. “Utatane” caught my attention immediately, since her photography was so much different to any photographer of her generation.
Rinko Kawauchi had her first exhibition at the end 1990s only a few years after a new - not to say the first - generation of women photographer had emerged in Japan. Before the mid 1990s the Japanese photography scene was completely male dominated, but this changed almost over night when the first onna no ko shashinka (girly photographers) entered the scene. Those onna no shashinka mostly did a kind of subjective documentary photography influenced by Nan Goldin and Nobuyoshi Araki. These women, amongst them most famous Hiromix and Yurie Nagashima, talked mainly about their own lives. With their spontanous and direct and dairy like style the young photographers opened a new narrative in the Japanese photography, but soon they reached their own limitations, because of their self centred approach on reality.
The photography I saw in Rinko Kawauchi’s book “Utatane” was different. It is much more open in terms of content and visual grammar. Her photography is more poetic in the way she depicts the (daily) live. It is personal in the way she describes the particular in the normal course of life, but her topics are universal at the same time. Rinko Kawauchi talks about live and death, the senses and the fluidity of reality. And sometimes, like in the book “Cui Cui” which observes the lives of her grandparents over a period of thirteen years, she mixes traditional documentary photography with her more personal and poetic approach on reality.
Rinko Kawauchi’s work focuses on ordinary things and everyday situations. Her photographs attain their specific quality through her use of cropping and choice of perspective as well as the subtle use of natural light in combination with often virtually transparent colours. Rinko Kawauchi works in series, which, in the form of open narratives, combine poetry and emotion with representations of mortality and occasional melancholy.
In the same year, 2003, I visited a small exhibition of Rinko Kawauchi’s in work in an off gallery in Berlin and a year later I saw her presentation at the “Rencontres de la Photography” in Arles where Martin Parr, as the head curator, put Rinko Kawauchi in the centre of the festival. In Arles took the chance for a longer talk with Rinko about her photographic work. 2004 I went to see her exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris. In my opinion this was an absolutely superb and persuasive show, with the large walls devoted to her opus magnum “Aila”, with “the eyes, the ears” in small cubicle in the centre and with “Cui Cui” presented as a slide show.
The subject of Rinko Kawauchi’s best-known work “Aila” (which means “family” in Turkish) is the depiction of the essence of life: animals, plants and people are shown in a sequence assembled by free association, which also includes both birth and death. Rinko Kawauchi’s fascination in fleeting beauty, the subjects of creation and destruction, and life and death are communicated in her images. “From the black ocean comes the appearance of light and waves. It helps you imagine birth. I want imagination in the photographs I take. It’s like a prologue. You wonder, ‘What’s going on?’ You feel something is going to happen.” (Rinko Kawauchi)
Since I work with Galerie Priska Pasquer, a gallery which has Japanese photographers in its program, it suggested itself to propose Rinko’s photography to the gallery.
After showing her work at last years Paris Photo fair, upcoming Friday Galerie Priska Pasquer will open an exhibition of Rinko Kawauchi’s photographs, and Martin Parr will do an introductory speech at the vernissage. The exhibition shows mainly works from the series “Aila”, “the eyes, the ears” and “Utatane”.
22 September - 22 December
Private view:
Friday, 22 September 2006,
6pm - 10pm, with an introductory speech by Martin Parr at 8pm
Matinee: Sunday, 1 October 2006, 11am - 4pm,
with a talk by Ferdinand Brueggemann at 12pm:
“Rinko Kawauchi and Contemporary Japanese Photography”
Biographical Summary:
Rinko Kawauchi was born in Shiga in 1972 and became interested in photography while she was studying at Seian Junior College of Art and Design. As is customary with Japanese photographers she began her career as an artist by publishing her work in her own photography books. In the year 2001 she became famous over night in Japan after the simultaneous publication of the three photography books “Hanako” (named after a disabled girl), “Utatane” (siesta) and “Hanabi” (fireworks). In 2002 she received the prestigious “Kimura Idea Award” for two of the books. In 2004 she published “Aila” (family), in 2005 “the eyes, the ears” (a book about the senses) and “Cui Cui” (which observes the lives of her grandparents over a period of thirteen years). Further publications by Rinko Kawauchi, which should be mentioned, are the photography books “Every day as a child” accompanying the film “Nobody Knows” by director Kore-Eda, as well as “No War”, a collaboration with Yoshitomo Nara about Afghanistan and her recently published diary “Rinko Nikki.” To date Rinko Kawauchi has published nine photography books.
[All quotes: Galerie Priska Pasquer]
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Recommended books:
Rinko Kawauchi: “Aila”
Rinko Kawauchi: “Utatane”
Rinko Kawauchi: “Hanabi”
Rinko Kawauchi: “The eyes, the ears”
Rinko Kawauchi: “Cui Cui”
Rinko Kawauchi: “Every day as a child” (photobook to the movie “Nowbody Knows”)
Rinko Kawauchi, Yoshitomo Nara: “no war”, Foil magazine, vol. 1, Jan. 2003
