1/1 Preview: Annette Booth on Rinko Kawauchi
Untitled, 2013.
I first encountered the work of Rinko Kawauchi at Paris Photo in 2006. My mentor at the time had given me an assignment: to go around the fair and come back with just one artist’s name, just one body of work that moved me. It was a smart way to manage the endless maze of artworks. The bombardment of imagery meant I saw a lot but remembered little—until I discovered Rinko’s work.
The mystical beauty of her photographs struck me like nothing else I saw at the fair. With every deceptively simple image, Rinko accomplishes something all great photographers strive to do: she captures the universal and says something about the world as a whole with a single photograph.
Untitled (2013) is no different. In this divine image, pastel-pink flower petals curve gently inward to form soft sumptuous spheres, just barely open. Just outside of the frame, an ethereal white light bathes the bouquet in a heavenly glow. As always, Rinko’s genius lies in the way she can make a picture of a child, an egg, or a bouquet of flowers speak to wider experiences of childhood, nature, and the essence of life.
Annette Booth, Exhibitions Manager
Rinko Kawauchi’s photograph Untitled will be available as part of Aperture’s Instagram Silent Auction at the Aperture 1/1 Benefit & Auction on Monday, October 28, alongside work from more than eighty other artists. Aperture’s Instagram Silent Auction is curated by Kathy Ryan, Director of Photography, New York Times Magazine. Pre-bidding starts online on October 15 at 11:00 am. Find out more about the 1/1 Benefit & Auction and buy tickets here.
Ametsuchi, photographs by Rinko Kawauchi, is now available. An exhibition of photographs from the book is on view at Aperture Gallery until November 21.
