On Kawara

On Kawara, born on January 2, 1933 in Kariya, Japan, is a contemporary artist, famous for his series of painted dates that he has been producing every day since the late 1960s. The artist lives and works in New York.

His work is based on the concept of time, but a time that is pretty cold, rigid, mechanical. His time is a mere observation. In his representation of time, the artist uses the principle of the calendar. His work is composed of paintings of various sizes, most of them black, all of them monochrome, with the current date represented in the center. His rule is never to spend more than twenty-four hours producing a work. The style of the date depends on the place where the artist is, and it is often in English because he lives in New York but also in many other languages and display styles, since he travels a lot. Each painting is stored in a box that fits its size with a press clipping from the day of the painting.

This work is extended by the telegrams he sends to other personnalities of the artistic scene with the mention ""I am still alive"" and the exact time, postcards in which he writes ""I got up at... "", or even huge books of the series One Million Years, in which are typewritten all the years composing a million years.