Lot 85: Untitled from 'Aila', 2004

KAWAUCHI RINKO (b.1972)
Untitled from 'Aila', 2004
oversized chromogenic print
signed in Japanese in ink on label with typed credit, title, date and number '5/6' on backing board
39¾ x 39¾in. (101 x 101cm.)

Kawauchi, Aila, Foil, 2005, n.p. (figs.1-2).

JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHY SINCE 1960

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.

MARTIN PARR & GERRY BADGER from The Photobook

This print is number 5 from the sold-out edition of 6.

Kawauchi's work has garnered international acclaim. Widely admired for her lyrical images, Kawauchi transforms the ordinary into dream-like photographs tinged with nostalgia and melancholy. For her series Aila [Family], she focuses on nature's fleeting beauty, the subjects of creation and destruction, of life and death.