On Kawara
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On Kawara (born December 24, 1932) is a Japanese conceptual artist living in New York City since 1965. He has shown in many solo and group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 1976.
Since 1966 he has made a long series of "date paintings" (the Today series), which consist entirely of the date on which the painting was executed in simple white lettering set against a solid background. If Kawara is unable to complete the painting on the day it was started he immediately destroys it. Other series of works include the I Went and I Met series of postcards sent to his friends detailing aspects of his life, another series of postcards, I Got Up At, rubber-stamped with the time he got up that morning, and a series of telegrams sent to various people bearing the message "I AM STILL ALIVE".
Much like the Today series, Kawara uses a number of days followed by date the work was executed as his life-dates. So the piece entitled Title at the National Gallery of Art has Kawara's life-dates as 26,697 (January 27, 2006) which, when calculated, place Kawara's birthdate at December 24, 1932.
Kawara does not give interviews nor comments about his work.
[edit] Influences on Contemporary Artists
- I am Still Alive is an installation piece after On Kawara by European artist Martin John Callanan. [1]
- onKawaraUpdate (v2) (2007) by American art collective MTAA updates and automates (via software) the process-oriented nature of On Kawara's date paintings. [2]
- British artist David Michael Clarke reworked On Kawara's Today series as Today Marriages 1969 - 1999 (2001). [3]
- In Return to Sender (2004) British artist Jonathan Monk co-opts On Kawara's I Got Up At (1968-1979). [4]
- Start it is a license to practice On Kawara's individual moments by German artist Stefan Hager. [5]
- The Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima's use of numbers is a product of On Kawara's influence on him. [6]
- In his multipart Rwanda Project, executed between 1994 and 2000 in response to the Rwandan genocide, chilean artist Alfredo Jaar sent Rwandan tourist postcards to his friends around the world, mailed from neighboring Uganda, bearing the names of people who he'd encountered while travelling in Rwanda, reversing the self-referential content of On Kawara's work 'I am Still Alive'; “Jyamiya Muhawenimawa is still alive!”, "Caritas Namazuru is still alive!", "Canisius Nzayisenga is still alive!" etc.
[edit] References
- ^ Martin John Callanan, 2004 I am Still Alive.
- ^ M. River & T. Whid, 2007 onKawaraUpdate (v2).
- ^ David Michael Clarke, 2001 David Michael Clarke.
- ^ Christy Lange, Tate Etc. issue 4, 2005 Bound to Fail.
- ^ Stefan Hager, november 23, 2004 Start it.
- ^ Aaron Kerner, 2007 The Depth of Memory Part 2: An interview with Katsushige Nakahashi.
[edit] External links
- A piece on Kawara by Adrian Searle from the Guardian
- An essay by art critic Lynne Cooke on On Kawara
- Consciousness. Meditation. Watcher on the Hills. 20 November 2002 - 26 January 2003 exhibition at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK.
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kawara, On |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | --- |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Japanese conceptual artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 1, 1933 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kariya, Aichi |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
