{"data":{"id":"16200","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":16200,"topgoose_id":1763,"tms_id":16200,"display_name":"On Kawara","sort_name":"Kawara On","display_date":"1933–2014","begin_date":"1933","end_date":"2014","biography":"\u003cp\u003eConceptual artist On Kawara’s practice\nis marked by a preoccupation with the\nmeasurement of time as an illustration of\nhuman existence. In the mid-1960s Kawara\ninitiated a number of temporal and\ndiarizing projects, including a series of\ntelegrams and postcards sent from\nhis travels to associates confirming “I Am\nStill Alive” and “I Got Up.”\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\nThe earliest and longest-running\nsuch project was the \u003cem\u003eToday \u003c/em\u003eseries, also\ncalled the \u003cem\u003eDate Paintings\u003c/em\u003e, which Kawara\nbegan in January 1966 and continued until\nlate 2013. He made thousands of these\npaintings—each taking eight or nine hours\nto complete—by creating a dense surface\nof acrylic paint and hand-drawing letters\nand numbers to spell out a single date that\nconstitutes the title of the work. Kawara’s\nself-prescribed rules dictated that each\npainting be completed within a single day or\ndestroyed, and established parameters\nfor the size, orientation, color palette, and\ntext. Each work also includes a handmade\nstorage box, which since late 1966 the\nartist has lined with news clippings for that\ndate from the city in which he made the\npainting. Such simple and rigid formulas\nbelie the complexity and physical\nintensity of the task Kawara set out for\nhimself, cataloging his days through\nhis own mechanical labor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/46048\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eJULY 4, 1967\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e is an early example\nfrom the series, aptly subtitled by the artist\n“Independence Day.” Yet what we learn\nthrough the clippings from a New York\ntabloid is simply the quotidian news of births,\ndeaths, and sports scores. That these\neveryday events exist within the subjects\nof his paintings—days, months, and years—\nhold up Kawara’s project and repetitive\nprocess as a meditation on living and dying.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":false,"collection":true,"ulan_id":null,"wikidata_id":"Q698256","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:38:09.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-12T07:01:20.830-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/16200/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/16200/exhibitions"}}}}