Rinko Kawauchi: Illuminance

Blending tricks of light with vignettes plucked from nature, Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi returns with Illuminance, an exhibition at New York's Gallery at Hermès. In Kawauchi's gaze, subjects are given the hyperreal treatment: a rose is blasted into an iridescent haze of pink; a stream of light pours, as if from an unseen pitcher, into a forest clearing; and a pyramid beams a plume into the atmosphere. “Something beautiful I unexpectedly come across always moves my heart,” the Tokyo-based artist says. To accompany the show, Aperture will release a monograph of the same name, marking the first time Kawauchi, who has exhibited at institutions including Paris's Fondation Cartier and São Paulo's Museum of Modern Artwork, has been published outside of Japan. Next week the artist's collaborative exhibition with photographer Taewon Jang, Colloquy and Soliloquy, will open at Mountainfold Gallery in Manhattan; the pair will show images from a recent trip to Japan's devastated region of Tohoku following the earthquake in March, with the proceeds going to benefit the victims of the disaster.