Utatane (Nap). Photographs by Rinko Kawauchi. Little More, Tokyo, 2001. Unpaged. Quarto. First edition (subsequently reprinted). SIGNED on half-tile page. Plain white wrappers with photo-illustrated dust jacket. Printed obi (belly band). 129 color reproductions.
NOTE: The first edition of this title has two different obis, this being the first issue. It was replaced by a slightly less ornate one after she won the 27th annual Kimura Ihei Award in 2002.
She was also a 2009 recipient a prestigious ICP Infinity Award.
"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."--Parr & Badger
"[Rinko Kawauchi's] trilogy of books Utatane (Nap, 2001) Hanabi (Fireworks, 2001), and Aila (Family, 2004) - reveals Kawauchi, in her early thirties as an invigorating force in the photography book form. She shapes subtle, elegiac narratives without the aid of the interpretative or endorsing text, leaving the reader nonetheless fully nourished by the extent of exquisite and intriguing sight to be found on this earth. Utatane, from which the selection in these pages is drawn, is the most open-ended sequence of the three books. Here, Kawauchi interweaves (with particular emphasis on the juxtapositions on facing pages) sensitized ways of perceiving the world around her, with the fleeting conflations of forms that make you wonder how one photographer managed to be present, attuned and ready to photograph so many pungent observations. Utatane is lyrical, even musical in the sounds it recalls: the whirr of a sewing machine, the pop of a party streamer, the sizzle of frying eggs. The narrative (of sorts) that runs through Utatane explores the way that everyday objects and occurrences can possess an unpretentious visual charge. It speaks quietly of the profundity of quotidian things."--Aperture, no. 177, winter 2004
Fine in Fine jacket and obi.
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