Almost 50 years ago, Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara did a painting that featured only that day's date: Jan. 4, 1966.
It was the start of his "date paintings,” a series that continued for 48 years until his death in 2014. He also sent postcards from all over the world to his friends saying simply what time he got up that day.
Kawara's work showing his obsession with time and place is now in a new retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum.
In this interview, WNYC's art critic Deborah Solomon said the exhibit is the first “must-see” art show of 2015. Solomon said Kawara's pieces are meditative and that the date paintings have a meaning beyond themselves.
“How can you hold on to a day? His work asks us that question,” she said.
Solomon said even though Kawara did the "I got up at..." series with postcards, and the "I went..." series, where he shows his whereabouts on maps, or the "I met..." series with everyone he met, his work is not about him. On the contrary, Kawara was a cryptic figure who never gave interviews or disclosed information about his past.
Solomon said the show makes no reference to the artist's early work, which consisted of death masks and paintings of mutilated bodies. He was 12 years old when Americans dropped a nuclear bomb in Hiroshima.
Solomon believes that this information is key to understanding his work.
“We all know compulsive behavior is a text-book response to trauma,” she said. Solomon thinks this is a case where the museum yielded too much power to the artist. Kawara died last summer, but he was closely involved with the organization of the show, which took several years.
“Even on the biography page of the catalog, it gives no information. It’s a blank page stating only that he had been alive for 29,771 days,” said Solomon.
What do you think? Should museums accept the demands of artists when presenting an exhibition? Or should they stick to the usual scholarly approach? Join the conversation with a comment.
