On
Kawara

On Kawara (b. 1933 in Kariya, Japan; d. 2014 in New York) was one of the founding figures of Conceptual art and Mail art, and came to West Berlin at the invitation of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (BKP) in March 1976. In 1953 Kawara began creating series of conceptual drawings and Shaped Canvases with subject matter related to life in Japan in the wake of World War II. After spending time in Mexico City, where he studied mural painting, and in Paris, Kawara settled in New York City in 1965. In 1966 he initiated the now iconic “Date Paintings” in the Today series; in each of these works, he painted the date on which it was executed in white lettering on canvas. The monochromatic background colors varied, and the date was recorded in the language and convention of the country Kawara was in at the time. In 1968, during a longer stay in Mexico City and his subsequent travels through almost every country in Central and South America, On Kawara initiated his I Read, I Went, and I Met series, as well as the postcard series I Got Up At; from then on, he sent two of these postcards every day. In 1970 he began working on a series of telegrams, each bearing the message I Am Still Alive, that he sent to various people, often in response to requests from the art world; he also produced the first volume of One Million Years, a typewritten record of one million years into the past, and completed this project the following year.

In January 1976 Galerie René Block showed On Kawara’s One Million Years (Past), a list of years beginning in 998031 BCE and ending in 1969; the work consists of ten binders containing 2,000 pages, each of which lists 500 years. In 1978, following Kawara’s period of residency in Berlin, Block exhibited all of the I Am Still Alive telegrams that still existed, following an extensive retrieval process. The publication I Am Still Alive was subsequently produced in collaboration with the Artists-in-Berlin Program; it featured facsimiles of the 200 telegrams On Kawara had made and sent in the period up to December 31, 1977. In January 1987, the Artists-in-Berlin Program invited On Kawara to come back and present the works he had created during his residency ten years before—the first time all of these works had been shown together in Berlin; the exhibition at the daadgalerie included the I Got Up At postcards he had sent from Berlin (which were able to be located and borrowed for the exhibition thanks to On Kawara’s meticulous documentation process), the I Am Still Alive telegrams, the Date Paintings created in Berlin—including their cardboard storage boxes and their subtitles, which refer to current events at the time when the painting was executed—and five new Date Paintings made in December 1986. The display also included One Million Years, which by now consisted of twenty volumes, having been expanded by On Kawara in 1980 to include One Million Years (Future). A comprehensive catalogue on Kawara’s oeuvre was published to accompany the exhibition.

On Kawara first participated in the Venice Biennale in 1976, the year of his BKP Award Grant, and he later took part in documenta 6, 7, and 11 (1977, 1982, and 2002). The latter edition included a public reading of One Million Years. This project was initiated in 1993 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and is as yet unfinished. Further readings of his epic piece were performed at the Venice Biennale in 2017 and at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf in 2018.

Text: Eva Scharrer

Translation: Jacqueline Todd