Rinko Kawauchi

Rinko Kawauchi’s Utatane (published by Little More in 2001) originated alongside its sister monographs Hanabi and Hanako as her dramatic, multi-volume debut onto the international photography scene. Rather than presenting a singular narrative, Utatane (which translates loosely to "catnap" or "dozing") emerged from Kawauchi's habit of carrying a medium-format 6x6 camera through daily life, capturing moments of quiet, drifting consciousness where the mundane boundaries of reality temporarily blur.

The publication holds a critical structural turning point in Kawauchi’s oeuvre because it established the lyrical, associative sequencing that would define her career. Instead of relying on rigid chronological documentation, she juxtaposed seemingly disparate everyday subjects, such as the quiet curve of a sleeping body, a melting ice cube, an egg frying in a pan, or the lifeless fall of a bird, into a delicate, open-ended visual poem. By treating all subjects with the exact same weight and tender regard, she created an immersive rhythm that mimics the wandering state of a daytime reverie.

Rinko Kawauchi’s Semear (co-published in 2007 by FOIL and the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo to mark the centenary of Japanese immigration to Brazil) originated from a transformative residency in the agricultural landscapes of Minas Gerais. Rather than acting as a detached observer, Kawauchi immersed herself in the rhythms of planting, harvesting, and rural community life, investigating the profound, quiet interconnectedness between human labor and the living earth.

The publication holds a critical structural turning point in Kawauchi’s oeuvre because it represents her first major sustained engagement with a distinct foreign geography outside of Japan. While maintaining her signature luminous palette and delicate attention to ephemeral light, the book expands her thematic scope from intimate domesticity toward a broader meditation on agricultural sustenance, generational migration, and the cyclical rhythms of the natural world.

Rinko Kawauchi’s The Eyes, the Ears (published by Aperture in 2005) originated as a conceptual continuation of her breakthrough trilogy Utatane, Hanabi, and Aila. Where those earlier books explored the grand cyclical arc of life, sleep, and birth through disparate observations, The Eyes, the Ears narrows its optical lens specifically to the mechanics of sensory perception, how our bodies physically register, filter, and archive the ephemeral data of the world around us.

The publication holds a critical structural turning point in Kawauchi’s oeuvre because it was one of her first deliberate experiments with paired image sequencing. Rather than relying on standalone lyrical vignettes, she structured the book entirely around deliberate diptychs and sequential spreads. By placing disparate subjects, such as the fragile flutter of a moth next to the glowing neon pulse of a city sign, or a drop of condensation on skin beside a microscopic insect, she forces a physical rhythm that mimics how human attention flits between distant memories and immediate sensory stimuli.

9 different scrolls of 33 in a combined edition of 300.

9 different scrolls of 33 in a combined edition of 300. Stairs scroll sold out as of 3/2021.

This is NOT the 2012 reprint.

Publication year based on publisher's information (not on a colophon with prints).

Book came in two different covers, this is the cover B (aerial view of a river).