Rinko Kawauchi

Rinko Kawauchi was born in Shiga, Japan, in 1972. She currently lives and works in Chiba. Rinko Kawauchi burst onto the international scene in 2001 when she received the Kimura Ihei Prize, Japan's most important photography award for emerging talent, soon followed by the simultaneous publication of three books, Utatane, Hanabi , and Hanako. These critically acclaimed "visual essays" demonstrate the artist's finesse and skill in telling a photographic story. Since this triple launch, the artist has published 27 other books, including Illuminance, Ametsuchi , and Halo .

Kawauchi, one of the most celebrated contemporary Asian artists, received the distinguished Annual Infinity Award (2009) from the International Centre of Photography in New York, in the Art category. She was also shortlisted in 2012 for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize and the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award 2023.

She has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions at home and abroad, with major solo exhibitions including at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris, the Photographers' Gallery in London, the Hasselblad Centre in Gothenburg, the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, the Kunsthaus Wien in Vienna, and the Foto-Forum in Bolzano. The solo exhibition "M/E On this sphere Endlessly interlinking" was presented at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery and the Shiga Museum of Art from 2022 to 2023.