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:
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.
Conceptual art often confounds. The key is to understand the rules of the artwork and the aesthetic experiences they yield.
She says conceptual art has three sets of rules:
rules for display
rules for conservation
rules for participation
I agree. If you understand those rules, you can better understand works like the one above, Untitled (Portrait of Ross in LA) (1991) by Félix González-Torres. (One of my favorites.) Now you may not grasp everything the artist is trying to express, but you will get closer to it.
I highly recommend her essay. It should open up such work to you the next time you encounter it in a museum or elsewhere.
(Image linked to in the article and is courtesy of Wikipedia)
Back in 2013, Chang had set up a store/exhibit in Soho, NYC, where
the only thing in stock here is the Beatles’s White Album, and the store doesn’t sell any of them, it only acquires more….(it included) 700 copies of the 1968 double-LP first edition of the White Album, all the personal collection of Chang. Each album is marked with a distinct serial number on the bottom corner of the starkly designed cover by Richard Hamilton, a totally white cover that’s readily attracted the wandering drawings of (possibly stoned) listeners, the visible stains of coffee cups, and some mold.
I never did get to see it, but the idea captivated me and I never forgot it.
Needless to say, I was excited and delighted to see that it was on the road and recently at the AGO! You can see part of the exhibit above. It wasn’t the same as being in the store, but it captured the essence of that 2013 event. Chang even made a new recording that consisted of 100 copies of the album all playing at the same time. The AGO had it on display and for sale, too:
As a big fan of conceptual art and the Beatles, I loved this project. I’m glad I could experience it through the AGO.
For more details, I recommend you go to that hyperallergic link and read more about it. You can also read more about the exhibit at the AGO, here.
(Images: top two mine, bottom image is a link to the hyperallergic article)
John Baldessari passed away recently. He was one of my favourite artists from the post World War II era. Here’s two traditional write ups on him from the leading papers of our day:
John Baldessari on his giant emoji paintings: ‘I just wondered what they’d look like large’ The Guardian
John Baldessari, Who Gave Conceptual Art a Dose of Wit, Is Dead at 88 –The New York Times
They are fine. However, I found what helped me reappreciate him was this piece: A brief appreciation of John Baldessari by Austin Kleon. It’s a short piece, but I came away from it with a better appreciate of Baldessari than I did from the other two.
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Smart People I Know 