Contemporary art writer and curator, and host of the podcast, Joana P. R. Neves, is joined by art advisor Liberté Nuti, who pitched On Kawara’s ‘Date Paintings’. Why was the Japanese contemporary artist so elusive? As an art historian, Joana should introduce his artistic career, but also his biography. But how to go against the artist’s careful erasure of self? Indeed, why did On Kawara do everything to reduce life to art and dedicate himself to a meditative exploration? This Art Wonderment experience took place at Zwirner’s gallery in London.
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Could the the Hiroshima calamity have had an impact on the artist’s work? Is it political art after all? The Japanese artist’s life is surprising and his personality comes across as humorous. But the most unexpected aspect of his work is the art routine it implied, and the unexpected flexibility of the artist ‘s studio practice, which he made nomadic in case of need.
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To know more about Liberté Nuti:https://www.haerbnuti.com/
Follow her on Instagram: @libertenuti
For more information on the show:https://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2024/on-kawara-london
For more information on On Kawara and One Million Years Foundation:https://www.onemillionyearsfoundation.org/
Expect: a biographic exploration of the Japanese artist’s life and work; an overview of the artist’s conceptual rituals; musings on the merging of life into art and vice-versa; emotional reactions to minimalism and conceptual art; and generous, lively art banter.
Music by Sarturn.
Did the episode stir Art Wonderment memories? Share them via text or voice message.
Created & Hosted by Dr. Joana P. R. Neves, art curator and writer with over 20 years of experience in the contemporary art field. Artistic director of Drawing Now Paris since 2018, she has worked across the industry, from the art market to education. She co-launched the art residency and project space Worlding in 2020. Exhibitionistas’ first year offered exhibition discussions with guest co-host Emily Harding; organically, it grew into a more experimental show exploring art topics, stories and interviews complemented by Joana’s publication Art Thinkosaurus on Substack. She champions ‘Art Wonderment’s’ embrace of complexity against the lure of ready-made opinions. A polyglot, she grew up in Lisbon, studied and lived in Paris, to finally settle in London with her artist husband, four children and two cats.
Find us:
On Instagram – @exhibitionistas_podcast
On Substack (NEWSLETTER: sign up!): Art Thinkosaurus > Exhibitionistas Files
Online: www.exhibitionistaspodcast.com
Do you want to be a guest on Art Etiquette? Reach out: joana@exhibitionistaspodcast.com
Copyright: Joana P. R. Neves, 2024.
00:00:13
As you know, Exhibition Nesters is 1 year old.
00:00:17
We're very excited with this second year and we're also
00:00:20
excited to welcome new Co hosts that will always bring a
00:00:25
contrasting position to mine, whether it's because like Emily,
00:00:30
they do not work in the contemporary art field or maybe
00:00:34
they have different roles within it, which will be the case for
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my hosts. Today.
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We have an amazing episode. We were very inspired by the
00:00:44
absolutely incredible opportunity to see On Kawara's
00:00:49
date paintings in a very encompassing exhibition at
00:00:53
David's Verna Gallery in London. We do mention the foundation
00:00:59
that On Kawara founded during his lifetime, the 1
00:01:05
Years Foundation, and we will have the links if you want to
00:01:11
check it out. I also make a little mistake.
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I mix the names of two very, very prominent American artists,
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Robert Smithson and Robert Morris.
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It was Robert Morris indeed, who created the artwork box with the
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sound of its own making in 1961. So apologies for that.
00:01:38
And I think that's about it. Yes, we have a video version
00:01:44
now. So if you're more of a visual
00:01:45
person, the videos do have images.
00:01:48
But if you're an audio person, if you like the experience of
00:01:52
closing your eyes and imagining yourself at David's Vernas
00:01:56
gallery, do it. Audio is amazing.
00:02:00
So let's do this. Let's start this incredible
00:02:05
episode with my amazing cohost, Liberty Nuti.
00:02:20
Welcome to Exhibitionistas, the podcast where we visit
00:02:24
exhibitions so that you have to all so that you can experience
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them vicariously through us. So today we have a very special
00:02:32
one. We are talking about the
00:02:35
exhibition at David's Werner Gallery in London of the date
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paintings by On Kawara. It was quite the experience.
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So the rule is very simple. My Co host and I visit the
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exhibition separately and compare notes during the
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recording. And today my Co host is none
00:02:58
other than Libertinuti, who you know from a previous episode
00:03:02
where she was our guest talking about art advisory.
00:03:07
She is indeed an art advisor specialized in modern art and a
00:03:12
tiny bit of contemporary art. But she has such an acute and
00:03:15
keen eye that it's going to be a pleasure to talk about the
00:03:20
exhibition with her. Today I am Joanna PR Nevis,
00:03:25
contemporary art writer and curator and artistic director of
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Drawing Now Paris So Liberty, thank you so much for being
00:03:34
here, for counterbalancing my more research focused experience
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of contemporary art and bringing maybe the experience and the
00:03:46
points of view of a more market driven job and experience in the
00:03:51
art world. But most of all, thank you so
00:03:53
much for being here and for being my Co host today.
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So nice to be back, Joanna. We must confess to your audience
00:04:00
that we've made an exception to your podcast.
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Oops. You are revealing the insides
00:04:09
and the backstage of the episodes you naughty Co host.
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OK, go ahead and say it. We went together.
00:04:18
I didn't really understand the rule at the time that we went
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back together and yet we look at it separately.
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And when we went, I promised you I shall not share my views
00:04:28
during our exhibition and I said no matter what.
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And I think we did. We did.
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We were very wise and very contained.
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I'm I'm very proud of us, honestly.
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But Liberty, how was your weekend culture?
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I thought it was a really intense week.
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First was the commemoration of the 80 years of the liberation
00:04:54
of the Auschwitz camp and which I watch on TV.
00:04:58
And I thought it was so emotional to hear the last
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survivors who are now now in their 90s, so much hardship and
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forgiveness at the same time. And really the message was from
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all of them in the different ways was they want us to
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remember. I watched the rise of the Nazi,
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which is a three-part BBC documentaries and it really
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shows how Germany went from a a democracy, the Vaima Republic to
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a total terrorism system. And this is so interesting to
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watch 100 years after it goes so quickly and it's just little
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things which kind of brings that type of of of regime and it
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shows the. I wonder why you're speaking
00:05:52
about that. At this moment, nothing in the
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world makes us think of the potentiality of a new form of
00:05:59
fascism, right? And populism, that's really and.
00:06:02
Populism. But what's interesting coming to
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our subject is he also made me think of on Kahawa, who is a
00:06:11
child of the Second World War, is a Japanese person who
00:06:16
witnessed Hiroshima when he was an adolescent.
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Yeah, it has a huge impact on him and it's specifically
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moulded his choices as an artist.
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Yeah. So As for myself, I've been
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trying to read Liberty and it's, it's been really, really
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difficult. I've been trying to reread
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actually, which is something that I'm really enjoying doing
00:06:38
at the moment. I picked up a book I had read a
00:06:43
few months ago called Parade by Rachel Cusk, and I was really
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interested in that book because all the characters, all the
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central characters, I would say I are called G.
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They're just a letter. She's very keen on modernist
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takes on literature and nouveau homo.
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And so she kind of produces these frameworks whereby she
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develops the narrative and the what really made me pick up the
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book was the fact that there's a character there, G maybe short
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for genius, which is something that she obviously deconstructs,
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and G is a painter who makes paintings upside down.
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Oh, reminds me of someone. Who could that be?
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And who has a very strange position about women?
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As someone else that came to your mind, specifically
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Basilitz, who said that women couldn't be painters.
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So of course, critics spotted that, and that book had a sort
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of echo in the contemporary art field.
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Going back to On Koara Liberty, we kind of touched upon this a
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little bit when you suggested doing an episode on him.
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But don't you find that he's kind of a monolith?
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And he's one of those few artists that I would never have
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thought of investigating because it's just taken, I think, by us
00:08:05
spectators and even our professionals as an entity that
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is completely merged with the work.
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Don't you agree? Totally, I had the same feeling
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actually. On Kawara is a concept is
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himself. Even his name was a mystery when
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we when I think about it. Was it his real name?
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What is his first name on? And at the same time, I thought
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I knew a lot about him because his work revolves around his
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daily life and activities and you have a feeling of who he is.
00:08:43
Even if he's extremely elusive. At the end of of the day, you
00:08:48
can show us what you've discovered about him.
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Artist. As I started reading, I realised
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that he really was not keen on having his biography out there.
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And he established the foundation during his lifetime
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and the foundation has a website, it's called 1
00:09:11
Years Foundation. And when you click on his name
00:09:14
expecting to find the whole biography, you just have written
00:09:19
on the screen, a sort of very minimal and empty screen
00:09:23
biography of on Kowara 29 days.
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And then there is a photo of his studio in black and white, which
00:09:35
is kind of midway between bureaucratic setting and an
00:09:41
artist studio with cupboards in the back with very high and thin
00:09:47
doors. That suggests an incredible
00:09:52
number of archives being kept behind them.
00:09:58
So someone who was very reluctant in being presented as
00:10:04
a life and much more keen to turn their life into art or art
00:10:11
into life, what would I do? Do I talk about his biography?
00:10:17
Do I talk about the work? So what I decided to do is
00:10:21
perhaps to start with one of his last works and to honour this
00:10:27
ethos, let's say, of the artist and describe the work that he
00:10:32
started in 1993 called 1 Years Past and Future.
00:10:38
What do you think, Libert? Did you think that's a good
00:10:40
idea? Yes, and I think you would have
00:10:43
liked. That on car, if you're
00:10:44
listening, this is for you. So in 197071 he started a folder
00:10:52
listing a million years from 1960 down.
00:10:58
Then in 1980 in another folder he listed a million years into
00:11:04
the future. So there's a gap between 71 and
00:11:07
1980, and in 1993 he joined those two works in the form of
00:11:14
readings. So two people read, 1 reads the
00:11:17
odd numbers, the other one reads the other numbers.
00:11:20
The odd numbers are read by a male identifying person and the
00:11:25
other numbers are read by a female identifying person.
00:11:29
A non binary person can choose one of the two and these are
00:11:33
performative work so they read in front of an audience.
00:11:38
They take a lot of time obviously and they have been
00:11:42
performed all over the world. So this is just to give you an
00:11:47
idea of the type of materials that On Kawara was working with.
00:11:53
So notions as vast as time and space in some ways, and the
00:11:58
conventionalities that come attached to those two concepts.
00:12:03
So dates, counting lists, binders and paintings, because
00:12:10
obviously we're talking about an exhibition that is Paintings on
00:12:13
the Wall. So basically this is what we're
00:12:17
talking about when we're talking about the work of On Kowara.
00:12:22
With this project that you just described is ongoing, it's still
00:12:27
alive, it's not there but and it's it's going to carry on for
00:12:32
many years because that 1 year reading backwards
00:12:35
and forwards will take a long time to put together.
00:12:40
So on Kawara biography, he was born in 1932 in Karia, in a
00:12:47
small town in Japan, and he died in New York in 2014.
00:12:53
The major episode of his life was obviously the Nagasaki and
00:12:59
Hiroshima bombings when he was 12 years old.
00:13:02
And it kind of marked a rupture in his personality.
00:13:07
He had been, up until then, a studious young little boy.
00:13:12
And from then onward, when he was in class and a teacher would
00:13:16
ask him something, he would say, I don't understand.
00:13:20
He was unyielding. And from that point onward, he
00:13:24
felt like he didn't believe anything.
00:13:26
So the system of belief cracked within himself.
00:13:31
If you compare to Yoko Ono, it's a completely different way of
00:13:35
relating to the same horrendous episodes of Yoko Ono would
00:13:40
devise menus with her brother lying on the ground in the
00:13:43
countryside looking at the clouds and discovered the
00:13:46
empowering force of imagination. So very different relationships
00:13:52
with an event that you that would anyway have moulded your
00:13:56
personality and the way it did tells a lot about the
00:14:02
disposition of of the artist in question.
00:14:05
Then from what we understand, it really closed down.
00:14:08
It kind of shut down. We I do not understand and not
00:14:13
wanted to move or engage in any ways.
00:14:17
So that kind of places him outside of the realm of the
00:14:20
disgust things because he don't doesn't understand them.
00:14:23
So he embraced a sort of nihilistic perspective on life.
00:14:29
In 1951, he moved to Tokyo. He met a number of artists in a
00:14:35
bookshop where, for someone who didn't understand, he read quite
00:14:40
voraciously. So he devoured Freud's writings,
00:14:44
Marx's writings, the existentialists, Sartre and
00:14:48
Camus in particular. So he was very well read.
00:14:51
And because he stayed in the bookshop reading, he met a
00:14:54
number of artists and became or started a practice as an artist.
00:14:58
He started painting in 1958. He moves to Mexico where he
00:15:04
spends three years. There his father was the
00:15:07
director of an engineering company, and so he was very
00:15:10
comfortably living there, going to art school, meeting all the
00:15:15
intelligentsia, and he also started exploring Mexico.
00:15:19
So I think that also was also the beginning of one of the
00:15:23
aspects of On Koara's biography, which is that he was a very keen
00:15:27
traveler. And I think he said to Casper
00:15:30
Kearney, if I'm not mistaken, that if he hadn't been an
00:15:34
artist, he would have been the travel agent.
00:15:38
There you go. Yeah.
00:15:41
Anyway, he then went to to Europe.
00:15:46
He lived between New York and Paris at a certain point.
00:15:50
A very important time before he settled in 1965 in New York, was
00:15:55
when he went to Spain, to Altamira, and he visited the
00:15:58
caves. And so that specific experience
00:16:02
was incredibly powerful because that experience of art that
00:16:07
remained in time. So that form of presence of arts
00:16:12
and of drawings and paintings and the absence of the rituals
00:16:16
around The Cave kind of also had an impact on the way he would
00:16:21
devise his works. And so in 1965, when he finally
00:16:27
settles in New York, he meets all the Conceptualists,
00:16:32
obviously he meets the Minimalists.
00:16:34
So he comes into contact with an incredibly creative, forceful
00:16:42
group of people who rejected a number of things, placing the
00:16:48
ego or the subject or the the the personal experience at the
00:16:52
centre of the creative act. Symbolisms.
00:16:58
Rejecting metaphor, being literal, rejecting painting in a
00:17:04
lot of ways and embracing graphic expression, embracing
00:17:10
language, embracing even bureaucratic practices in some
00:17:15
ways, and also rejecting the Yeah.
00:17:20
Systematic and the series. The embracing the systematic,
00:17:24
the system and the series absolutely.
00:17:27
So on. Kowara found a like minded group
00:17:33
of people and in 1966 he starts the works that we saw in the
00:17:41
exhibition at David's Verner in London called The Date.
00:17:45
Paintings that went on he went on to make until 2012, so until
00:17:51
two years before his passing. So, Liberty, you are going to
00:17:56
talk about the Dave paintings in the second part?
00:17:59
So we'll, we'll, we'll visit the exhibition together when he goes
00:18:04
to New York and really get into that group.
00:18:07
He's not, he's 33 years old and he's not a baby anymore.
00:18:11
He's, he's already done quite a lot and that's really when he's
00:18:15
blossoming. And I thought the age is quite
00:18:17
important there too. But he has a long way to go.
00:18:21
And also it's, it's, it's important to say that he did
00:18:24
paint even when he was in Japan, he had these paintings that were
00:18:28
very graphic, almost comics inspired about dire situations,
00:18:35
lots of bodies in, in, in difficult and painful situations
00:18:39
or isolated after the date paintings which bear the dates
00:18:44
of the day when he makes them. So he has 24 hours to produce a
00:18:50
painting that states the date when it was made.
00:18:55
So of course this resonates a lot with works at the time.
00:19:00
Robert Smithson's box with the sound of its own making comes to
00:19:05
mind, obviously, and so many other works which are self
00:19:09
referential. But there's an existentialist
00:19:13
take to Ankawara, because this is also a performative act.
00:19:18
He has to make the painting on that day.
00:19:21
Obviously, this is a very rigid structure, so there aren't
00:19:25
paintings for each day. If you're wondering, dear
00:19:27
listener, there's a huge gaps. But apparently he was able in
00:19:31
the 70s to go three months, three whole months with making a
00:19:36
painting each day. So there are several dimensions
00:19:40
for these paintings, several letterings, several fonts and
00:19:44
colours. But Liberty, you will explain
00:19:47
all of this in the second part of the episode and after the
00:19:51
break. He decides to do a painting a
00:19:53
day, but it is not. Some days he doesn't do one
00:20:00
because he can't. Some days they are destroyed
00:20:03
because it's he's not quick enough.
00:20:06
Then he takes. Some breaks, there is some
00:20:09
intermittence. It's continuity, but
00:20:11
intermittence, again, you have always this double force in in
00:20:19
the work of Onkarawa. And some days he even does 2A
00:20:22
day. The same dates he repeats the
00:20:26
same date. Yeah.
00:20:29
Really. I didn't know that.
00:20:31
You will remember when we go to the exhibition together.
00:20:35
I can't wait. So let's just go over the series
00:20:39
of works he made. So on Kawara was paradoxically a
00:20:44
very prolific artist, but had just a a small number of series
00:20:49
of works and a lot of them were based on postcards.
00:20:52
So he started in 1968, two years after he started the date
00:20:57
paintings. The series I got up.
00:21:01
So this series of works states simply the sentence I got up and
00:21:08
the time when he got up, so the hour and the minutes.
00:21:12
He started this series in Mexico knowing that Kaspar Kony, his
00:21:17
friend, loves to receive postcards, and so he sent 2
00:21:23
postcards a day for 12 years. And so again, still no
00:21:29
handwriting, only stamps. And The funny thing about this
00:21:33
series is that Kasper Koenig says in an interview that this
00:21:38
series stopped an anecdotally, because he he was carrying, I
00:21:44
think in Finland, the briefcase where he kept his stamps for the
00:21:48
series. And the briefcase was stolen.
00:21:51
And so that's why. And that's how.
00:21:54
The must have a boots count. The most absorbed those cars and
00:22:00
that's how the series stopped. So it's very interesting because
00:22:04
there's a, so there's a postcard, there's also an image
00:22:06
in the back. And in some ways the highly
00:22:09
personal meets the blandest and most reduced form of expression
00:22:14
of time and place. Because of course there's
00:22:16
images, but those images are for tourists.
00:22:19
So they are the most neutral, the most conventional images you
00:22:23
can have of a landscape or of a place.
00:22:26
So this series is also a bit trickier than the date
00:22:29
paintings, but because it is more personal, you can track on
00:22:33
Koara's habits. And it's interesting that it's
00:22:36
choose the medium of postcard because today who buys a
00:22:42
postcard and who sends a postcard?
00:22:44
It's it's, we still do it, but it's a little bit of the time.
00:22:49
And Speaking of that, we even find telegrams in his work as
00:22:53
well. The time.
00:22:55
Because the I'm still alive series started with three
00:22:59
telegrams sent in 1969. So I'm still alive is the same
00:23:05
idea. Then the I got up postcards so
00:23:08
he would send postcards saying I'm still alive and so he sent 3
00:23:13
telegrams, telegrams saying I am not going to commit suicide,
00:23:19
don't worry. So that was the first one.
00:23:22
The second one it is. I am not going to commit suicide
00:23:27
worry. OK.
00:23:32
And the third one is I am going to sleep.
00:23:35
Forget it. The third one kind of is the
00:23:38
hinge upon which he then finds the final form of this series,
00:23:45
which is saying I'm still alive. The same thing with the day
00:23:47
paintings. It destroyed most of them, but
00:23:50
they were saying something. Something.
00:23:54
The word something. Something just one word and
00:23:58
looking like the date painting monochrome background.
00:24:02
Not many are left because they destroy most of them I think.
00:24:07
So there's this basis of a form of dread, a form of existential
00:24:14
dread that very quickly is overturned by the bureaucratic
00:24:19
keeping of time and a a sort of sense of humor as well.
00:24:24
So the I'm still alive I find absolutely hilarious because as
00:24:28
soon. Receives it to postcard.
00:24:31
Can you imagine? You'd be like, great.
00:24:34
But is he? I think that's the question you
00:24:36
ask yourself, because then you think of the possibility of the
00:24:40
opposite being also true after the postcard was made, no?
00:24:46
Doesn't your mind go there? Yeah, absolutely.
00:24:49
And it's it's very positive because I'm not going to commit
00:24:52
suicide. It's a very passive aggressive
00:24:54
either way phrase as I'm still alive is taking life with a
00:25:00
positive twist. And in a way there is a lot of
00:25:05
humour because what do you reply to that?
00:25:07
And it reassures you, even though you don't know if the
00:25:12
person is still alive when you receive it a week after.
00:25:15
I have a funny story about this series which is about a couple
00:25:21
of collectors. So they started by collecting
00:25:24
expressionistic German expressionist painting and then
00:25:29
slowly they turned towards conceptual art, minimalist art,
00:25:32
process art. And they loved on Koara and they
00:25:37
had one of the date paintings in their living room and their
00:25:41
friends mocked them endlessly because of their collection and
00:25:44
couldn't understand why on earth they would collect postcards
00:25:49
based work, data based work. They they couldn't get it and
00:25:55
until one day they they were in a horrendous train accident.
00:26:03
And so the wife got away OK ish. But the husband was between life
00:26:10
and death for a while. And they're the funny and the
00:26:14
interesting story within this story is that the wife was
00:26:20
talking with one of their friends.
00:26:22
He was calling to ask about the husband and and when they were
00:26:28
chatting on the phone, the person said, you know what I was
00:26:34
thinking of the date paintings that you have in your living
00:26:36
room and that artist that you told me about.
00:26:39
And I never understood why you liked that work.
00:26:43
And now that we are in the situation of thinking of losing
00:26:47
the both of you, I finally understand the meaning.
00:26:51
Of the news of of Ankara, why is very anchored in in the to, you
00:26:58
know, day-to-day quite mundane a postcard from this and there
00:27:03
just putting the date. It's quite funny.
00:27:05
But at the end of the day, what else?
00:27:08
I am still alive. This is the most important
00:27:11
thing. That's why we want to know about
00:27:12
our children, our loved 1. You are still alive.
00:27:15
We're OK. And that's a genius of Onkarawa.
00:27:20
And I think he got to the same conclusion at the end of the 60s
00:27:24
because that's the moment where he stopped talking about his art
00:27:28
and stopped agreeing to talk about his art most of the time.
00:27:33
And when he was questioned by a journalist, a student and art
00:27:38
critic about his work, he would send one of those postcards as a
00:27:42
response. Really.
00:27:44
Yes. I'm going to have to do that
00:27:47
too. So he started in 68 as well,
00:27:53
another series called I Went. So this is based on maps.
00:27:57
So he photocopied maps to the size of an A4 sheet of paper
00:28:02
that he that then kept in a binder.
00:28:04
And he just basically took a red felt pen and he traced the
00:28:10
journey that he did by walking or any other form of
00:28:14
transportation in that specific place.
00:28:17
So always this relationship between time and place rather
00:28:23
than time and space. As I said before, probably
00:28:26
there's finally the other series I met from 1968 to 1979 where he
00:28:33
made. So he indexed to a day, a sheet
00:28:37
of paper to a day. And on that sheet of paper, he
00:28:40
would write the names of the people that he met on that day.
00:28:44
And the the genesis of this work is really funny because as a
00:28:48
Japanese immigrant, he very often didn't understand the
00:28:52
names of the people. But also as a traveler, as
00:28:55
someone who most of the times were, it was in countries where
00:28:59
he didn't speak the language as well or didn't speak it at all.
00:29:02
So he asked people to write down their names.
00:29:05
And so he had, he found himself with papers with names of on
00:29:08
them. And he decided to make this
00:29:11
series based on that sort of, again, conventional relationship
00:29:19
with the self and with humanity and with experience, which is to
00:29:24
know the name of the person you're talking to.
00:29:26
Basically. The work is bureaucratic.
00:29:28
It's mobile as well, because he can make the work anywhere in
00:29:33
the world, in his hotel room, for example.
00:29:35
Even the paintings they are, they travel really easily and as
00:29:40
you said, they have full materials.
00:29:42
The material is not what makes the preciousness of the work,
00:29:46
let's say, unless you recognize, like you just did, that time and
00:29:50
space and place and experience are the most precious things you
00:29:53
have. These paintings, the date
00:29:56
paintings, which he did everywhere, I don't think they
00:30:01
know exactly in how many countries, but they counted more
00:30:06
than 100 cities. And you can know by the language
00:30:11
he's using. Then he's clearly worked in in
00:30:14
very many different places to do these paintings.
00:30:18
I think him and the Conceptualists really grasped, I
00:30:23
think, something of the times. So the in 1970 there was an
00:30:26
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York called
00:30:29
Information, curated by Mcshine. And it's interesting because the
00:30:38
idea of information was in the exhibition related to
00:30:42
photography. There was this notion that
00:30:44
photography marked time and space.
00:30:47
It was indexical. And the whole exhibition was
00:30:50
about that. And we will talk about data
00:30:53
nowadays, right? There was this consciousness of
00:30:56
data. And because it was the first
00:30:58
computers, the artists were starting to look at technologies
00:31:02
as well and how those technologies in some ways
00:31:06
recorded the recorded existence and at the same time also
00:31:12
recorded a huge absence of what the, the sign or the symbol can
00:31:21
and cannot carry. So in I, you know, in the
00:31:24
exhibition, there's a, a piece by Douglas Hubler called
00:31:27
Location Piece just to kind of illustrate the fact that
00:31:31
Ankawara was certainly not the only artist thinking in terms of
00:31:35
place, location, time and space. So Douglas Hubler collected
00:31:40
newspaper photographs of local newspapers in several cities and
00:31:44
several places in the United States.
00:31:47
And the he chose the photos that only had local interests and
00:31:53
that reflected the space and the life of that space of that
00:31:57
particular place. And in his words, his work,
00:32:01
quote, shifts the image away from object hood, making the
00:32:04
recipient the subject of the work, UN quote, which could also
00:32:09
be applied to On Kowara. But in some ways, there's also
00:32:13
the stripping of subject hood in on Kowara on Kowara's work.
00:32:19
I find there's also kind of this nakedness of existence in in in
00:32:25
the work of on Kowara. And that comes this nakedness
00:32:29
you feel, I think that comes from his great humanity.
00:32:35
And as in all this project and series, there is attention and
00:32:41
an opposition with, like you say, information.
00:32:46
You know, that's why they did in that exhibition.
00:32:48
They took many photographs because this is reality.
00:32:50
Photograph is what you see opposite to something you create
00:32:54
from your brain and cuttings of newspaper is the reality of the
00:33:01
day and Ankara use that in the way he he puts his painting in
00:33:08
boxes with the cuttings of the day and the recording.
00:33:11
And that's all very precise by information or that data, as you
00:33:15
would say now. But Ankara use a very painful,
00:33:25
painful thinkingly method, which is very old fashioned.
00:33:32
He has his canvas, he will do the priming and then the first
00:33:37
layer and the second layers. And it's, it's very handmade.
00:33:42
And that creates a tension between, yes, the data, the
00:33:45
conceptual and the very human, the very artistic way.
00:33:50
Again and again you found that in all these series.
00:33:53
I cannot wait to go into the exhibition space and visit or
00:33:58
revisit the exhibition with you, Liberty.
00:34:01
So shall we go for a small break and when we come back.
00:34:07
The exhibition. Yes, absolutely.
00:34:09
Let's do that. See you in a bit.
00:34:25
OK, so we're back after a short break and we are about to be
00:34:31
taken by the hand by Liberty into the exhibition.
00:34:37
Great, then let's push the door of the gallery and visit the
00:34:41
exhibition. The exhibition was at David's
00:34:46
We're Not Gallery in Mayfair. The gallery is beautiful.
00:34:50
It's in the spacious Georgian townhouse in the heart of
00:34:53
Mayfair. Just to give you some context.
00:34:56
The space is very elegant with high ceilings, beautiful windows
00:35:02
covered with white linens. It's restored to perfection and
00:35:06
I would say that it's one of the most successful contemporary
00:35:10
space in London. Personally my favorite because
00:35:14
he has this white cube, but in an old townhouse.
00:35:18
It's just it's a great mix and it's a perfect vessel for On
00:35:23
Karawa and it's wide, it's clean and it's quiet.
00:35:28
Then what we are going to see in the exhibition is some painting
00:35:34
by On Karawa. They are all coming and that's
00:35:38
important. They are all coming from the
00:35:40
foundation 1 years and they've never been seen on the
00:35:44
market and they are for sale. Which is quite incredible, isn't
00:35:49
it? How do you go about buying?
00:35:53
How do you go about pricing? These works as well.
00:35:56
I read an article stating that there's a specific date painting
00:36:00
that went up. The price shot up, probably
00:36:04
because two people with a personal relationship with that
00:36:07
date were fighting for it. But what's really interesting is
00:36:10
that in the anecdote I recounted earlier, one of the jokes that
00:36:15
the friends would make when they would visit these collectors who
00:36:18
had the date painting in the living room was, oh, what is
00:36:21
this? Is this your birthday?
00:36:23
And they found it absolutely egregious.
00:36:26
They thought, why would it be my birthday?
00:36:28
But then I learned that some other people will go to the
00:36:32
dates for a personal reason. So it is interesting how you
00:36:38
enter this kind of word, but we're jumping the gun here.
00:36:42
We'll still not in the exhibit. We're still signing the book at
00:36:46
the entrance. So Di Bertie, go for it.
00:36:49
I'm so curious to know how you feel in front of these
00:36:53
paintings. So I'm only is.
00:36:55
Well, first it's you walk in the in the main room, which is on
00:36:59
the ground floor and what you see there is a lineup of five
00:37:07
grey painting dated on front 1966 with the June, July and
00:37:14
then the, the, the, the day and these these five paintings that
00:37:19
66 is important because this is the year on camera was started
00:37:24
these day paintings. And it's exactly on the 4th of
00:37:27
January 1966 that he did his first one.
00:37:29
And then he will continue that idea or that series for the next
00:37:34
5 decades, as we said, until one year before is dead.
00:37:40
The last one recorded is on December the 3rd, 2012 and it's
00:37:46
#1933 in the series. We might be missing some.
00:37:53
You know, it's, it's not complete perfect science.
00:37:57
Then when you walk in, they just want to show you, you know,
00:38:01
where it starts. And that's really the
00:38:03
cornerstone. And in that room, I don't know
00:38:08
you, but for me, when I walked in, the first thing I was
00:38:12
confronted is, yes, you see these squares paintings which
00:38:16
are monochrome with the date. And I was like, how does that
00:38:19
work? What's the system?
00:38:22
What does that mean? And I think I was really getting
00:38:26
into the nitty gritty of they don't have the same colors, they
00:38:30
don't have the same size. They are kind of the same, but
00:38:34
the writing is not really the same.
00:38:35
And and then my brain was getting into, I want to
00:38:39
understand what are the rules? What is he doing?
00:38:43
And that's kind of what happened to me downstairs and working
00:38:48
with you on the podcast. I've got so many answers, which
00:38:52
I will try to explain how he sets a rule and how that works.
00:38:57
And for me, this is downstairs. How is it for you?
00:39:01
Well, it's really well curated, isn't it?
00:39:03
Because as you enter, if you face a painting right away, so
00:39:07
you face a date. And I felt a physical sensation.
00:39:12
I felt a sort of slight punch in the stomach.
00:39:18
There's something about them, yeah.
00:39:24
Then you had the emotion. I did, yeah.
00:39:27
I don't know, Maybe I have a specific relationship with time
00:39:30
because in my kitchen I have a small set of cubes and
00:39:36
rectangles. Calendar.
00:39:39
Yeah, it's a calendar, wood calendar that you have to
00:39:41
manipulate yourself. So every morning I change one or
00:39:45
two cubes or the rectangle below that states the the month.
00:39:51
It doesn't have the year. And I love doing that.
00:39:54
It's the my, it's the first thing I do in the morning.
00:39:58
I go to the kitchen, have my breakfast, change the date and I
00:40:02
feel like I'm starting the day. I'm I'm I'm, I'm unlocking
00:40:08
another level of the video game, if if you will, and I love doing
00:40:13
that. It's your ritual.
00:40:15
It's my ritual and when I leave on holiday, no one else does it
00:40:18
in the house. So when I come back to the
00:40:20
house, yeah, I'm frozen in time. So I don't know.
00:40:24
And I that's it. You'll have this wooden thing
00:40:27
because it's so obsolete in a way, you know, we all have
00:40:30
phone, they update immediately, we have time everywhere.
00:40:34
But who? Who has a wooden calendar?
00:40:38
And who makes paintings with dates when you have at the time
00:40:43
you started having electronic devices that would tell you the
00:40:46
time and you can even call, I don't know if you remember that
00:40:50
you could call a line that would tell you the exact time of the
00:40:53
day. Do you remember?
00:40:54
That I do about the, the making of the paintings and how the
00:41:05
whole project works. Please bear with me.
00:41:07
It's a little bit technical, but not so much.
00:41:09
But it's very interesting, I think when you know, because
00:41:12
that gives you a very different reading.
00:41:15
Then when you walk in, you see all these painting which are the
00:41:18
same, but not quite the same because of course there is a
00:41:21
date, but also they vary a little bit with colors, with
00:41:26
everything. And then that gives a, it's not
00:41:29
really a constant that, that, that, that that gives some
00:41:32
variety to to the work. Then the way he does it, then a
00:41:37
date painting is a monochromatic painting on canvas.
00:41:41
He's using 3 colours only, grey, red and blue.
00:41:47
And then when he's done the background, the monochromatic
00:41:50
background, he will inscribe the date with some cherry font of
00:41:59
the day the painting was made and the date is done with a
00:42:03
ruler. He kind of calibrates it that it
00:42:06
sits in the middle. And then he will paint it in
00:42:10
with white paint. If the painting is not finished
00:42:15
by the end of the day, it will be destroyed.
00:42:17
There will be no painting with the date of that day.
00:42:21
With the colours he make them himself.
00:42:24
He will mix them. Then the the the most common
00:42:27
colour is the grey which is very very dark Gray.
00:42:31
It nearly on photos he can look black.
00:42:33
It looks black in photos, yes. And it was quite interesting
00:42:37
when I met one of your friend who was an artist we discussed,
00:42:41
I said, oh, what did you see? And you say, oh, I love the
00:42:44
colours. It was even 1 green.
00:42:46
It was like green. And then when we went back, it's
00:42:49
the screen. The the third one on this 1966
00:42:53
is kind of a very dark khaki tree green, but actually it's
00:42:58
Gray. And then I think it's just the
00:42:59
way mixed the the paint and then maybe the light of the gallery
00:43:03
and she really saw it as green, but it is not green.
00:43:06
But that gives you an idea of. There's a hue of green because
00:43:10
the thing that we discussed with the person who was there at the
00:43:13
gallery at the time is that when you have 3, three colors for
00:43:17
your paintings, they will change.
00:43:19
If you change brands, For example, if one of the brands
00:43:22
discontinues the color you use, it's going to affect and it's
00:43:26
going to you're going to have slight variations of the colors.
00:43:30
Yeah, and he's making, he's mixing the color every day.
00:43:34
And don't forget it is travelling.
00:43:36
And in a way it's, it's a way of meditation, you know, because it
00:43:40
will take a few hours to complete because in between if
00:43:43
you do layers, you do a two layers of ground, then you do
00:43:47
the colors you need the paint to dry in between.
00:43:51
And that's then there is a real craftsmanship.
00:43:55
And if you look at the painting very carefully, there is some
00:43:58
little bubbles, there is some little corrections.
00:44:01
They look very clean. There is a little accident which
00:44:05
makes which makes them very human.
00:44:08
The canvases they come in several sizes.
00:44:12
There are 8 possible sizes you can choose from on the day they
00:44:16
go from the small one which is 8 to 10 inches or the very large
00:44:21
one which will be 61 by 89 inches in the room.
00:44:26
The 1966 They are medium sized canvases.
00:44:31
They are 26 by 24 inches, which is about 60 sixty 70cm by 90
00:44:37
centimeters to give you an idea and they're always 5cm deep,
00:44:42
which is 2 inch, which gives especially on the small 1.
00:44:47
I don't know if you've noticed it gives an idea more of a more
00:44:51
of a box than of a painting. It's an object because I and I
00:44:55
didn't understand why when I saw the exhibition when I went back
00:45:00
and I noticed the 5 centimeters. That is why it's it's just more
00:45:05
physical than the usual canvases.
00:45:09
Yes, yeah, they have a real presence in space.
00:45:13
Then this painting he will build on the day.
00:45:17
He will build a box, a cardboard box where they go in when they
00:45:23
are not exhibited, and the cardboard box.
00:45:26
And that's where he gets very on Carawa and cereal.
00:45:29
He's blind with the newspaper of the day, and then he will give a
00:45:36
subtitle which is generally taken from that newspaper, which
00:45:41
you will write on the upper right corner you follow.
00:45:48
Yes, it's it's interesting because now I remember that when
00:45:52
you were there, you asked why they weren't shown with the
00:45:57
boxes. They they it's it's a curator if
00:46:01
you editorial choice here. They wanted to keep a very clean
00:46:05
look. I think it's only about the the
00:46:07
painting, but the paintings are going with the box, which are
00:46:09
going with the cutting and the subtitle.
00:46:11
And of course, this is all recorded in the book.
00:46:16
Of course, if he moves to another country, he will be in
00:46:20
the language of the country. And if if it's not an English,
00:46:28
no, if it's not a Latin alphabet based country like his own
00:46:34
country Japan, who has a, you know, has a.
00:46:37
Ideographic, yeah. Actually the if you take the
00:46:41
Arabic countries the E brilliant language then he will switch to
00:46:48
Esperanto which is invented language.
00:46:52
Did he speak Esperanto? I don't think so.
00:46:55
Who does eat today? A a few people there, there's
00:46:59
still that. There is still an ongoing
00:47:02
desire. Well it it does exist it hasn't
00:47:04
really take off. I think it was bigger before
00:47:08
then for the generation I was 4 kids.
00:47:12
Then The date is ever changing with the language and he has
00:47:19
always to write it in a way that it's very calibrated between the
00:47:25
left and the right. Then there is a real kind of
00:47:28
exercise of design in a way for each day.
00:47:34
And it has chosen the English language as kind of a base in
00:47:39
the Latin alphabet. And then the first time he's
00:47:41
using it is in 1963 with the painting, the names.
00:47:46
And then the painting is called something, and that's the first
00:47:49
time he's using English. And that's very interesting.
00:47:51
As a Japanese person, that is. That's his choice.
00:47:55
Also, when you think of the history of Japan, the bombing
00:47:59
and the American presence, and then suddenly he finds himself
00:48:02
in New York in a context that is so important to him in
00:48:08
conceptual terms and in artistic terms, that's one of those
00:48:13
ironies of history, I guess. Yeah, but that's an important
00:48:18
key. I think that the choice of the
00:48:20
of the language and in the in that ground floor you go in the
00:48:24
in the base kind of a side room where you have other paintings
00:48:28
and there we could find your favorite 1 and it was your
00:48:32
favorite because it says 20 space ABR in capital .68.
00:48:45
Then can you translate that for us and can you explain?
00:48:49
So, so my personal relationship with that painting is that
00:48:54
immediately I read it as Trinta dia Brionel of Sensistenta,
00:48:58
which is my language, Portuguese, like my mother
00:49:00
tongue. And it's interesting because
00:49:05
like my, that's, that's where my brain goes.
00:49:08
But it actually was produced in Mexico as far as I remember, and
00:49:12
it's Treinta de Avril de Milo a Ciento SE Centa.
00:49:15
So it's interesting because suddenly it kind of connects
00:49:19
the, the history of those two languages, the differences
00:49:23
between them. So they are linguistically very
00:49:27
close. And at the same time, when you
00:49:29
speak them as I just did, they are so different.
00:49:33
And I remember how excited you were like a kid because it's
00:49:36
your language were they were great dark grey and made on the
00:49:41
same day. Then that also shows you that
00:49:43
some days he doesn't do it, someday it does it that the
00:49:46
continuity and the exception, which I really like.
00:49:49
And I think that comes with if it's your date or the date of
00:49:53
someone you know and your colour and your language.
00:49:56
And that's very personal. And that's where from a very
00:49:59
conceptual dry project, you get something very, very personal.
00:50:04
And I love seeing you kind of reacting to that.
00:50:07
And then we did a selfie there and I was like, OK, that's
00:50:10
concept part. We go back to the making of it.
00:50:16
Then on the this painting will go in a box and then on the top,
00:50:21
this box will be lined with the newspaper of the place it will
00:50:27
be on. And he will choose what he calls
00:50:30
subtitle, which we will write at the top right corner in in the
00:50:35
book. And they are generally the title
00:50:38
is choosing either the main title of the day or they can be
00:50:43
about the weather. It's really about the news.
00:50:46
Sometime it's about him or his friends.
00:50:49
Then he can also go in his personal life.
00:50:51
It's, it's, it's rarer, I would say.
00:50:55
Then I'll give you a few examples of the titles.
00:50:59
Then one is 8 June 1966. Hurricane Alma has mounted to
00:51:05
100 miles an hour peak winds and he's moving towards Cuba. 22
00:51:11
July 1966 Russian specialists have developed the first live
00:51:17
vaccine against mumps. It can be either a long phrase,
00:51:21
it can be two words, it can be two sentences.
00:51:25
It really varies. And actually there is a podcast,
00:51:31
it's a couple and they just read the titles and the dates.
00:51:34
And it's very interesting because you are transported
00:51:37
directly. They read the date and then the
00:51:39
title, and then you're transported in 19, in the 60s.
00:51:44
They are timeless, but they are of the day.
00:51:47
And that's really reinforced by this cutting and this subtitle.
00:51:53
But it's funny because you start seeing time as LED these layers
00:51:56
and layers and layers of facts, feelings relating to those
00:52:01
facts, and how some things kind of come to the surface again,
00:52:07
like the Hurricanes. And the war and the politics,
00:52:10
when you hear that this, this this fun podcast, well, I found
00:52:14
it funny. It's the same of the same in a
00:52:16
way. And in 1972 in December is going
00:52:21
to drop the subtitles. Do you know why, Joanna?
00:52:24
No clue. OK, then a little bit like the
00:52:29
story with the stolen briefcase. He's in 1972 Ankara was an
00:52:37
artist in residence in the Moderna Museum in Stockholm.
00:52:42
And at the time that's there was some bombing in Vietnam by the
00:52:48
Americans and that was related in the newspaper.
00:52:51
And apparently he did some cut out of this major event and one
00:52:58
had the title Bomb Terror Hanoi, which is put in a folder and he
00:53:07
wrote about above that cutting yag vet inte which translates
00:53:13
from Swedish I do not know. And this is the type the
00:53:19
subtitles of 28th of December 1972.
00:53:24
I do not know in Swedish and from the 29th December 1972, the
00:53:31
subtitle just a day of the week, Friday and then Saturday and
00:53:40
Sunday. And that's from 72, no more
00:53:43
funny subtitle. It's only it kind of shrink
00:53:47
again. And that really reminds me of
00:53:49
the story you told us about when he was young.
00:53:52
I don't understand. I do not know.
00:53:55
Frozen in time is just blocking it.
00:53:58
It doesn't want to interpret it's thesis and the subtitle I I
00:54:03
giving a big clue here. It's funny because it's making
00:54:06
me think of the rawness of trauma with that generation.
00:54:11
You lived horrendous things. You went through horrible
00:54:16
hardships, but there's it's that generation, the pre boomers
00:54:22
almost because he was born before the Second World War.
00:54:24
You recompose your personality, you readjust and you keep on
00:54:31
going. And that's, there's something
00:54:33
really striking about that, this reduction of your experience to
00:54:44
a date and at the same time this death of your experience with
00:54:54
the date as well. There's this idea of death.
00:54:57
The dates always made me think of the idea of dying every day
00:55:02
and being born every day. And there's something to it that
00:55:08
I find very positive. And then there's something which
00:55:11
is akin to trauma and but also the positive and the negative
00:55:16
aspects of trauma as well. That kind of trauma connects you
00:55:20
to a raw, existential, almost delirious joy of being alive.
00:55:28
And at the same time, it's reminds you constantly of the
00:55:33
possibilities of hardship and death.
00:55:35
There's there's something really puzzling and hard to put into
00:55:40
words in in the work really and. You said he put it away, but in
00:55:46
a way he didn't because he became an artist.
00:55:50
And it's the whole, he's the whole life is dedicated to
00:55:56
overcome that trauma and and making something of it.
00:56:00
He's closing down the words. He doesn't want to explain, but
00:56:04
he does a painting a day and that's his meditation.
00:56:07
This is a turning the calendar. He's very positive he's
00:56:10
restarting every day no matter what.
00:56:13
Are you the one who is positive? We don't know if he was or not.
00:56:17
You, Liberty, are a very positive person.
00:56:21
Possibly. But you, you need, you know, you
00:56:24
need a little light every morning to start a new painting
00:56:29
every day. There's something about
00:56:32
dislocating the ego in in art practices at the time and taking
00:56:38
yourself out of the picture. And I realize that when I see
00:56:41
one of those paintings, I immediately think of him.
00:56:45
And so you do think of the crafts and you do think of the
00:56:48
patients, and you do think of the meditation, and you do think
00:56:52
of this idea of keeping time while laughing in its face.
00:56:58
It's this idea of containing within a very simple gesture a
00:57:02
sort of absurdity of, or contradictory or paradoxical
00:57:07
aspects of a moment in time. And so it is quite traditional
00:57:15
in terms of. Traditional.
00:57:17
Philosophy and very innovative at the same time, like the
00:57:21
Altamira caves. But I suggest now that we go on
00:57:26
the second floor. We're still see.
00:57:29
Imagine if we had talked in the exhibition.
00:57:32
We're so chatty. Let's go to the second floor and
00:57:35
and wrap it up. The Beautiful because we're in
00:57:39
our gallery, they have this fantastic restored staircase,
00:57:44
which is really staircase to heaven and that brings you on
00:57:48
the, the, the men most beautiful floor, which is a second floor
00:57:53
where there for me, it was a complete different emotional
00:58:00
story. When I I walk in the same 1 long
00:58:04
room and one room on the side you walk in and there is a whole
00:58:08
wall with a painting area, which means 10 paintings there.
00:58:16
Now I've got the system, then 1970, then 1971, then
00:58:22
197219731974, 1979. Then you move on the side and
00:58:30
there is a large blue painting which is very beautiful, 1982
00:58:34
and just on the side room where you can slide to, there's
00:58:39
another painting 1971 then on the next wall, 2000 and finally
00:58:45
2006. And for me, there I was totally
00:58:50
hit. It was like the ruthlessness of
00:58:53
time. Every you realize it just never
00:58:57
stops. It's like a rabbit hole.
00:59:00
It just goes on and on and on. And for me, the last painting,
00:59:04
when I looked at 2006, I just saw my death.
00:59:10
I was like, that's it. And my reaction was to rush back
00:59:17
and just say what's important? What do I have to do today?
00:59:21
Who am I just like really? And he was so emotional and I
00:59:26
was like, this guy is a genius. I know you hate the word genius
00:59:30
but it's he was from something quite technical on the 1st row
00:59:34
to a very, very meaningful, deep and emotional reaction which
00:59:41
really made me question myself. And for that, I'm so grateful to
00:59:45
on Karawa. What about you?
00:59:49
Well, I, it's funny because I had more of an impact downstairs
00:59:53
and the second floor for me was rushed.
00:59:58
There was an acceleration towards a time where I was
01:00:02
already here. Because that's the thing.
01:00:05
I think maybe the impact was also you're looking at a time
01:00:10
right before you were was like 10 years before I was born and
01:00:14
rather than bearing an image to make you.
01:00:17
To connect with you, to tell you a story.
01:00:19
It just has the time on it when it was made.
01:00:22
It's so reflected onto itself that it really places you after
01:00:28
that. So, but I think I, for me, the
01:00:31
paintings have more impact when they're isolated.
01:00:34
And that's why for me was more impactful downstairs, because
01:00:38
the calendar sense of things, pages of a calendar being leafed
01:00:44
through, it doesn't give me the same impact in a sense.
01:00:50
How different we are on that reaction.
01:00:52
Yeah. And look at at the at what
01:00:56
people buy. Of course, you know, if you have
01:01:00
the big painting, the colourful are, you know, we'll have a
01:01:03
premium, I guess. But the other thing which come
01:01:05
in big prices is when you buy them in groups as a decade.
01:01:11
So funny, and it's funny that you are buying chunks of time.
01:01:18
I just wanted to give a little anecdote about the whole meaning
01:01:23
of the exhibition. Then when I was waiting for you
01:01:26
on the bench, have a very civilized bench downstairs at
01:01:31
the as we are now, which is in the kind of in between places.
01:01:35
There was a visitor who asked a reception.
01:01:38
He said, is that it? Is there anything else to see?
01:01:45
I was like, who else do you want?
01:01:49
And I was like in that kind of trance about meaning of life.
01:01:54
And when the person say, is there anything else, then I'll
01:01:58
leave you on that note. But.
01:02:00
That's beautiful, is there anything else?
01:02:02
Lee Betty, thank you so much for doing this first episode as a Co
01:02:09
host. It has been wonderful and I hope
01:02:13
you come back. Thank you and thank you for
01:02:16
listening. Bye bye.