“Utatane” by Rinko Kawauchi is listed among the ‘top ten books of the decade’ at the British Journal of Photography
by Ferdinand on December 21, 2009
The British Journal of Photography has published a list of top ten books of the decade. Among the top ten is Rinko Kawauchi’s book “Utatane” (Siesta). Rinko Kawauchi had published the book in 2001 and she received for “Utatane” and a second book “Hanabi” (Fireworks) in the following year the Kimura Ihei Award, a leading photography in award in Japan.
The top ten list was compiled by Gerry Badger, who co-authored the two volumes of “The Photobook: A History” with Martin Parr. In the first volume of the photobook anthology Gerry Badger wrote about “Utatane”:
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.
Her images documentary everyday things, yet could not be described as documentary. They are generally light in tone, yet somehow dark in mood. They are almost hallucinatory, yet seem to capture something fundamental about the psychological mood of modern life.
If Kawauchi in conjuring up a dreamlike state, she is also creating a powerful metaphor for life in the contemporary metropolis, which, at least economically, is comfortable for most people, on the surface. The dream evoked in Uatatane is not nightmarish. Nothing much untoward happens, yet there is enough off-kilter to awaken us from our nap feeling vaguely confused, depressed and anxious.
[Quotes: Gerry Badger: The Photobook: A History. Vol. 1]
PS: Our partner Antoine de Vilmorin had exhibited the series “Utatane” in Paris in April 2008.
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