2004
bilingual edition (English / French)
JRP|Editions - Monographs
sold out
The 1990s in eleven "Date Paintings"
As one of the most important Conceptual artists, On Kawara features in most of the surveys on post-war art. This book, conceived in close collaboration with On Kawara himself, takes a very intimate form in comparison to many monographs published recently. This seems an appropriate manner in which to discover eleven paintings created over a decade, letting the viewer complete their reading with personal associations, historical events, or academic interpretations.
“Perhaps,” writes Thierry Davila in his text, “art is simply a particular way of taking time … So the work, the on-going creation is essentially a question of using time … ”
Seen from this perspective On Kawara has invented a simple and striking way to make art, by taking time, taking his time. He found a way to use the calendar to make a kind of “non-individual” art work. In his Date Paintings, time itself has become a piece of art. The work is pure realism, the existence of time put in painting, thus rendering it—up to a certain point—viewable and readable.
