KAWARA, ON
1932 Kariya/Japan–2014 New York

Title: "SEPT.19,1988".
Date: 1988.
Technique: Liquitex on canvas, with enclosed newspaper "The New York Times" from Monday, the 19th September 1988, in the original cardboard box.
Measurement: 21 x 25.5 cm.
Notation: Titled and dated centre: SEPT. 19, 1988. Signed verso centre: On Kawara.








Provenance:
- - Micheline Swajcer, Antwerp

- Private collection Belgium

- Schönewald Fine Arts, Xanten (acquired at TEFAF, Maastricht, in 2003)



- The „Date Paintings“ of the internationally celebrated concept artist are rarely offered on the German auction market

- Consequential and simultaneously poetic concentration of time and existence

- One of the most favourite pieces of the collector Jochen Neynaber



“One of Jochen Neynaber’s Favorite Works”



The key dates of On Kawara’s life can be summarized by his birth year, 1932, and his death year, 2014. Yet it is far more in keeping with his artistic self-conception to define his lifespan as 29,771 days. Born in Japan, he participated in his homeland’s postwar artistic scene before relocating to Mexico City in 1959, where he began studying art and undertook extensive travels. In New York, where he lived from the 1960s onward, he made a significant contribution to the emerging field of conceptual art. On January 4, 1966, he began the legendary “Date Paintings” of the Today series, an ongoing project realized in changing locations around the world until 2013.



Although he documented his activities with meticulous, almost bookkeeping precision—for example in the series I Read, I Went, and I Met (from 1968 onward)—On Kawara himself remained elusive and avoided public appearances. His gallerist, David Zwirner, confirmed that the artist neither attended exhibition openings nor allowed himself to be “interviewed or photographed”; moreover, Kawara forbade Zwirner from engaging in any form of marketing for his art. Information concerning his own existence was limited to time and place. Beginning in 1970, he responded to inquiries from representatives of the art world with the laconic telegram message: “I Am Still Alive.”



In the “Date Paintings,” On Kawara painted the date of the day on which each work was created in white acrylic onto a monochrome canvas, usually rendered in dark tones. The format of the date follows the conventions of the country in which the artist was located at the time of production. For On Kawara, both “date” and “place” function as constant structural categories for the systematic recording of temporal and spatial changes—changes that shaped not only his travel-intensive lifestyle but existence itself. Kawara consistently translated the variable of passing time onto horizontal canvases limited to eight possible sizes, varying from 20.5 × 25.5 cm to 155 × 226 cm while maintaining a constant depth of 5 cm. Over a period of eight to nine hours, he patiently applied letters and numbers to the canvas by hand, though in anonymous block lettering, thereby emphasizing the passage of time not only conceptually but also through craftsmanship.



Each “Date Painting” is housed in a custom-made, precisely fitted box which—like the present example—also contains a newspaper article published on the very day of the work’s creation. A final rule governing the work stipulated that any painting not completed on the day whose date it depicted had to be destroyed.



The present work bears the date September 19, 1988. The article of the same date placed inside the lid of the accompanying box comes from The New York Times and bears the headline “A Coup in Haiti Puts a General in Presidency.” The text addresses the problematic circumstances surrounding the presidency of Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril following a military coup against his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy, in the country’s second governmental overthrow of that year. The accompanying photograph shows a group of Haitians watching as a man burns in the street. With the same neutrality with which On Kawara records the date, he incorporates this excerpt and leaves it entirely uncommented, despite its obvious horror. Thus, 19 Sept. 1988 not only isolates a singular moment from the continuum of time through minimal means, but also reveals the discrepancy between the objectively quantifiable duration of a day and the almost limitless abundance of events of varying significance that may occur within that unit of time.



This “Date Painting” by On Kawara was among Jochen Neynaber’s favorite works. It held great emotional significance for him because it was associated with “his” museum, the Museum für Moderne Kunst in his hometown of Frankfurt, an institution to which he had always been deeply committed. The MMK possesses one of the world’s most significant collections of works by On Kawara, making such a work indispensable to Neynaber’s private collection.



This work is a rarity: on the German auction market, Date Paintings by the internationally sought-after conceptual artist were sold for the first time in our The Kasper König Collection auction (October 1–2, 2024) (cf. Artprice).



Estimated shipping costs for this lot:
The lot is unsuitable for parcel shipping. Transport only by shipping company after consultation following the auction.

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#On Kawara #Conceptual Art #Asia #Post-War Art #Painting #1980s #Post War.







In accordance with §26 UrhG (German Copyright Act), VAN HAM is obliged to pay a statutory resale royalty on the sale proceeds of all original works of fine art and photography whose authors have not been deceased for 70 years prior to the end of the calendar year of the sale. The buyer shall contribute 1.5% of the hammer price to this fee.