16 - 19 November 2006

Booth C4

Opening times during the "Photoszene Koeln" photography festival:

Friday, 29 September 2006, 1pm - 10pm, and Sunday, 1 October 2006, 11am -2pm

Matinee: Sunday, 1 October 2006, 11am - 4pm,

with a talk by Ferdinand Brueggemann at 12pm:

"Rinko Kawauchi and Contemporary Japanese Photography"

In her native Japan the 34-year-old Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi has become one of the most celebrated photographers of her generation. After appearing in several museum exhibitions and festivals in Europe (among others "Rencontres de la Photographie", Arles; Fondation Cartier, Paris; Huis Marseille, Amsterdam: Photographers' Gallery, London) this exhibition will be the first extensive presentation of the photographer in Germany. Works from the series "Aila" (2004) as well as from the series "the eyes, the ears" (2005) and "Utatane" (2001) will be shown.

Rinko Kawauchi's work focuses on ordinary things and everyday situations. Her photographs attain their specific quality through her use of cropping and choice of perspective as well as the subtle use of natural light in combination with often virtually transparent colours. Rinko Kawauchi works in series, which, in the form of open narratives, combine poetry and emotion with representations of mortality and occasional melancholy.

The subject of Rinko Kawauchi's best-known work "Aila" (which means "family" in Turkish) is the depiction of the essence of life: animals, plants and people are shown in a sequence assembled by free association, which also includes both birth and death. Rinko Kawauchi's fascination in fleeting beauty, the subjects of creation and destruction, and life and death are communicated in her images. "From the black ocean comes the appearance of light and waves. It helps you imagine birth. I want imagination in the photographs I take. It's like a prologue. You wonder, 'What's going on?' You feel something is going to happen." (Rinko Kawauchi)