David Zwirner Gallery issued a statement on their website announcing the death of the famous artist, On Kawara, on July 10th, 2014 in New York. He was 81.
On Kawara was born in Kariya, Japan in 1933. He left Japan in 1959, traveling through Mexico and Europe before settling in New York in 1965. Kawara came into his own during the heyday of conceptual art; his creative work records and investigates the passage of time, identity, and continued existence, blurring the line between artistic creation and daily life.
Since undertaking work on his Today series in 1966, the artist had added thousands of individual pieces to the series. The key image in all of these paintings is a sparse and monotonic date displayed in the language and grammatical conventions of the country in which the painting was executed. All of the paintings in the series were completed on the date depicted. In the years following, the artist also created the Title series which included “I Read”, “I Met”, “I Went”, and “I Got Up”. Via postcards, newspaper clippings, street maps and other such items, the artist recorded his experiences and interactions with people on a day to day basis along with the places he traveled to.
Since 1970, On Kawara began the practice of randomly sending telegrams to friends, artists, and agents. Most of telegrams included codes as well as the message “I AM STILL ALIVE”; his continued habit of sending these telegrams formed the I Am Still Alive series. All such telegrams are unsigned and unadorned. One critic has pointed out “these telegrams are eloquent because of what they leave unsaid… I Am Still Alive constitutes a recognition of the time dimensions embodied in the telegram.”
It has been reported that the Guggenheim in New York is planning a massive retrospective of Kawara’s work entitled “On Kawara—Silence” from February 6th to May 3rd, 2015. The artist never accepted interviews and refused to appear in public throughout his life. The exhibition will include the all of the artist’s series work created after 1964.
