Echo 119 in Paris Photo

November 12-16, 2025
Grand Palais, Paris

VOICE SECTOR (B56)
MAIN SECTOR (B48)

Building on its notable participation in the 2024 fair with a solo show by Sakiko Nomura and her Traümerei series, the écho 119 gallery returns this year with two distinct sectors: The Voices sector and the main sector.

Conceived as a dialogue around the various forms of banality , the main section —bringing together the demanding offerings of major galleries—highlights singular and assertive artistic approaches. We will present three artists whose worlds subtly resonate with one another: two Japanese photographers, Rinko Kawauchi and Chieko Shiraishi , as well as a Quebec artist, Maude Arsenault .

Going beyond the simple exploration of everyday life, the works of the three artists presented offer unique perspectives on seemingly ordinary things: domesticity, parenthood, urban wanderings, memories... Uncovering what lies behind the banal, illuminating the ordinary, but also summoning the common language of emotion and wonder: this is the guiding thread of this presentation, which offers a re-enchantment of the world within everyone's reach — a poetic and necessary act of resistance in the contemporary global context.

Rinko Kawauchi

Internationally renowned Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi draws her inspiration from everyday life: the Japanese summer, small moments of joy or sadness, the growth of her child… These fragments of existence become, under her gaze, visual poems imbued with gentleness and light. Her work, marked by a delicate and contemplative aesthetic, elevates the ordinary to reveal its hidden beauty.

Rinko Kawauchi, Untitled from the series “Illuminance”, 2011, courtesy echo 119

Chieko Shiraishi

Chieko Shiraishi transc He captures his memories through a rare and almost forgotten photographic technique: zokin-gake . His landscapes, both blurred and profound, convey an inner vision where memory gradually fades, leaving only the trace of an emotion. Through this process, Shiraishi transforms reality into a space of intimate resonance, oscillating between memory and reverie.

Chieko Shiraishi, "花火, Fireworks" Tokyo Bay 2008, courtesy echo 119

Maude Arsenault

Quebec visual artist, performer, and photographer Maude Arsenault explores themes of female representation, private spaces, domesticity, and intimacy. Her practice, at the intersection of photography and visual art, blends abstract compositions, self-portraits, documentary images, and installations. By placing female bodies in unexpected spaces, Arsenault reclaims the gaze and the power of representation, asserting a sensitive and engaged vision of the contemporary female condition.

Maude Arsenault, Hometrap, 2020 , courtesy echo 119

A new section inaugurated in 2024, VOICES invites two renowned curators each year to develop proposals around contemporary themes and to select artists from the international scene. For this new edition, the ÉCHO 119 gallery has been invited by Nadine Wietlisbach (director of the Fotomuseum Winterthur), whose proposal revolves around the theme of family ties.

On this occasion, the gallery presents a solo show by Rinko Kawauchi , an emblematic figure of contemporary Japanese photography, with her series As It Is .

Rinko Kawauchi, untitled, from the series as it is, 2017 , courtesy echo 119

Alongside the exhibition at the Fondation Cartier, where the series Cui Cui —a vast and intimate portrait of her family circle created over nearly thirteen years, particularly focusing on her grandparents—will be presented, Rinko Kawauchi unveils the series As It Is at Paris Photo. This series follows her daughter from birth to the age of four or five. Exquisitely delicate, it unfolds the poetry of everyday life and the gentleness of ordinary gestures, revealing the fragile and universal beauty of family bonds.

See you very soon!

the Echo 119 team