On Kawara --------- Born: December 24, 1932, Kariya, Aichi, Japan Died: July 10, 2014 (aged 81) New York City, United States Nationality: Japanese Known for: Visual art, conceptual art On Kawara (December 24, 1932 – July 10, 2014) was a Japanese conceptual artist who lived in SoHo, New York City, from 1965. He took part in many solo and group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 1976. Early life ---------- Kawara was born in Kariya, Japan on December 24, 1932. After graduating from Kariya High School in 1951, Kawara moved to Tokyo. Kawara went to Mexico in 1959, where his father was the director of an engineering company. He stayed three years, painting, attending art school and exploring the country. From 1962 to 1964 he moved back and forth between New York and Paris. He travelled through Europe before settling in 1965 in New York City, where he was an intermittent resident until his death. Work ---- Kawara belonged to a broadly international generation of Conceptual artists that began to emerge in the mid-1960s, stripping art of personal emotion, reducing it to nearly pure information or idea and greatly playing down the art object. Along with Lawrence Weiner, Joseph Kosuth, Hanne Darboven and others, Kawara gave special prominence to language. Paris-New York Drawings ----------------------- From 1962 to 1964 Kawara made about 200 Paris-New York Drawings. Their motifs include stripes and grids like those of the Minimalist painter Agnes Martin. Other drawings depict installation pieces that fill rooms with networks of string. Today series ------------ Today Series date painting at Art Institute of Chicago. From January 4, 1966, Kawara made a long series of "Date paintings" (the Today series), which consist entirely of the date on which the painting was executed in simple white lettering set against a solid background. The date is always documented in the language and grammatical conventions of the country in which the painting is executed (i.e., “26. ÁG. 1995,” from Reykjavík, Iceland, or “13 JUIN 2006,” from Monte Carlo); Esperanto is used when the first language of a given country does not use the Roman alphabet (“6 AŬG. 1993”, from Tokyo). The series is an example of word art. The paintings, executed in Liquitex on canvas, conform to one of eight standard sizes, ranging from 8x10 inches up to four by six feet, all horizontal in orientati.

On Kawara Is Still OK

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On Kawara ist noch in Ordnung

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