I was not aware of On Kawara until recently, and so I went down a rabbit hole reading as much as I could about him, as well as taking in whatever art I could find online. The following links I found helpful if you want to know more about this artist:
- An Existence: On Kawara — Silence at the Guggenheim | HuffPost Entertainment
- On Kawara: Date Painting(s) in New York and 136 Other Cities | David Zwirner
- The Guggenheim Shows First On Kawara Retrospective – The New York Times
- On Kawara – Wikipedia
Thoughts I had:
- To me he seems a fine combination of minimalism and conceptualism. That some of his earlier work was related to minimalist Agnes Martin was also interesting.
- While time is the focus of many of his work, secondary ideas come from that, such as scale and precision. Even location is there in the painting.
- While the Date Paintings are minimal to the point of looking mechanical, they are actually produced by hand. Indeed there was significant effort by the artist to make one of the Date paintings.
- Perhaps they could have been even more minimal by only using black and white, but there are color choices made for the paintings, reflecting the part of the painter.
- Like other conceptualists, Kawara had rules for his work, For example, “When Kawara was unable to complete the painting on the day it was started he immediately destroyed it.”
As someone fascinated by time and how it is measured and what that signifies, I was intrigued by the work of Kawara. If that appeals to you too, check him out.
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