Blog Galerie Priska Pasquer

The summer edition of ARTnews magazine¹  has a review of the Rinko Kawauchi exhibition “Utatane” our partner Antoine de Vilmorin organized in Paris this spring.

Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi records the ephemeral scenes that pass by each day barely noticed, searching for the sublime in the banal. The 40 photographs here came from her 2001 series “Utatane”, which means “catnap” and refers to a state of half sleep. The idea of letting go of conscious thought and giving oneself over to intimate moments tied together these breathtaking and occasionally melancholy still lifes, landscapes and portraits.

Subjects include wilting sunflowers, a dead wasp upside down on a windowsill, eggs sunny-side up, a laughing woman, a bit of frayed rope, and an expanse of cloud-filled sky worthy of a Constable painting. Kawauchi uses only natural light to achieve adiant, translucent colors and often takes prictures in close-up or from curious, oblique perspectives to produce striking compositions. They focus the viewer’s gaze with precision but never feel clinical. Even the unframed presentation was calculated to offer the greatest immediacy.

The artist has said that she takes photographs without forethought, when the mood or inspiratioin strikes, and the images are too scattered to suggest a narrative. Yet each seems loaded with meaning, like a line of poetry. These delicate, luminous fragments encourage us to take the time to see. They are filled with humanity but never slip into sweetness.

Laurie Hurwitz

1. ARTnews, summer 2008, no. 7, p. 180 [↩]