In 2001,
Rinko Kawauchi launched her career with the simultaneous publication of three astonishing photo-books—Utatane, Hanabi, and Hanako—firmly establishing her as one of the most innovative newcomers to contemporary photography, not just in Japan, but across the globe. In the years that followed, she published other notable monographs, including
Aila (2004),
The Eyes, The Ears (2005), and
Semear (2007).
Now, ten years after her dramatic entry onto the international stage, Aperture is delighted to publish
Illuminance (Aperture, May 2011), the latest volume of Kawauchi’s work and the first to be published outside of Japan.
Kawauchi’s work has frequently been lauded for its nuanced palette and offhand compositional mastery, as well as her wonder-inspiring, deliberate attention to tiny gestures and the incidental details of her everyday environment.
In Illuminance, Kawauchi continues her exploration of the extraordinary in the mundane, drawn to the fundamental cycles of life and the seemingly inadvertent, fractal-like organization of the natural world into formal patterns. This impressive compilation of previously unpublished images is proof of Kawauchi’s unparalleled sensibility and her ongoing appeal to the photography lovers.
Aperture is proud to contribute to the relief efforts in Japan by issuing this very special
limited-edition photograph by Rinko Kawauchi, made the day after the earthquake in Tokyo. Kawauchi is considered one of the most noted Japanese photographers of her generation. She is known for her quiet aesthetic, offering viewers a glimpse of tender, fleeting moments that often go unnoticed. In this photograph Kawauchi captures the sun straining through a soot-filled sky. The resulting image is hauntingly beautiful, a poignant illustration of the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
Net profits from the sale of this print will be donated to the American Red Cross Japan Relief Fund.
RINKO KAWAUCHI (born in Shiga, Japan, 1972) studied graphic design and photography at Seian Junior College of Art and Design. Among her awards and accolades are the 1997 Grand Prix Prize at the Guardian Garden’s 9th Hitotsubo Exhibition, the 27th Ihei Kimura Photography Award in 2002, and the 2009 International Center of Photography Infinity Award in Art. She has had solo exhibitions at Fondation Cartier, Paris; Photographers’ Gallery, London; Galleria Carla Sozzani, Milan; Hasselblad Center, Göteborg, Sweden; and Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo, among other international venues. Kawauchi lives and works in Tokyo.
Curator, writer, and former director of Photoworks, DAVID CHANDLER (essay) is currently a professor of photography at the University of Plymouth and a visiting professor at the University of Brighton.
Artist Talk and Book Signing:
Wednesday, May 19, 6:30 pm
Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
Exhibition on view:
May 20–July 16, 2011
The Gallery at Hermès
691 Madison Avenue
New York, New York
81/2 x 11 in.
(21.6 x 28 cm)
176 pages, 125 four-color images
Hardcover with jacket
ISBN 978-1-59711-144-7
$60.00; £40.00
Aperture—located in New York’s Chelsea art district—is a world-renowned non-profit publisher and exhibition space dedicated to promoting photography in all its forms. Aperture was founded in 1952 by photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Barbara Morgan, and Minor White; historian Beaumont Newhall; and writer/curator Nancy Newhall, among others. These visionaries created a new quarterly periodical, Aperture magazine, to foster both the development and the appreciation of the photographic medium and its practitioners. In the 1960s, Aperture expanded to include the publication of books (over five hundred to date) that comprise one of the most comprehensive and innovative libraries in the history of photography and art. Aperture’s programs now include artist lectures and panel discussions, limited-edition photographs, and traveling exhibitions that show at major museums and arts institutions in the U.S. and internationally.
To request more details and or images, please contact:
Christina Caputo, Publicity and Events Manager, (212) 946-7123, ccaputo@aperture.org
