In this episode, Joana P. R. Neves and co-host Liberté Nuti look back on On Kawara's exhibition at David Zwirner Gallery London, Date Paintings (21 November 2024 to 25 January 2025 ).
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/
They explore the life and work of On Kawara, a significant figure in contemporary art known for his repetitive and conceptual Date Paintings (1966 - 2012).
How do you deal with an artist who did everything he could to reduce life to art, and thus preserve life's unique intangibility? How do you experience a series of works dedicated to the obsessive recording of time through craft?
"It was quite the experience"
"On Kawara is a concept, in himself"
"What else do you want?"
Music by Sarturn.
Support us on:https://exhibitionistaspodcast.com/ and go to the DONATE page.
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As you know, Exhibition Nesters is 1 year old.
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We're very excited with this second year and we're also
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excited to welcome new Co hosts that will always bring a
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contrasting position to mine, whether it's because like Emily,
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they do not work in the contemporary art field or maybe
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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
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absolutely incredible opportunity to see On Kawara's
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date paintings in a very encompassing exhibition at
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David's Verna Gallery in London. We do mention the foundation
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that On Kawara founded during his lifetime, the 1
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Years Foundation, and we will have the links if you want to
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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.
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And I think that's about it. Yes, we have a video version
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now. So if you're more of a visual
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person, the videos do have images.
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But if you're an audio person, if you like the experience of
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closing your eyes and imagining yourself at David's Vernas
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gallery, do it. Audio is amazing.
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So let's do this. Let's start this incredible
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episode with my amazing cohost, Liberty Nuti.
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Welcome to Exhibitionistas, the podcast where we visit
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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
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one. We are talking about the
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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
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other than Libertinuti, who you know from a previous episode
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where she was our guest talking about art advisory.
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She is indeed an art advisor specialized in modern art and a
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tiny bit of contemporary art. But she has such an acute and
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keen eye that it's going to be a pleasure to talk about the
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exhibition with her. Today I am Joanna PR Nevis,
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contemporary art writer and curator and artistic director of
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Drawing Now Paris So Liberty, thank you so much for being
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here, for counterbalancing my more research focused experience
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of contemporary art and bringing maybe the experience and the
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points of view of a more market driven job and experience in the
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art world. But most of all, thank you so
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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
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that we've made an exception to your podcast.
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Oops. You are revealing the insides
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and the backstage of the episodes you naughty Co host.
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OK, go ahead and say it. We went together.
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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
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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
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of the Auschwitz camp and which I watch on TV.
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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
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about that. At this moment, nothing in the
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world makes us think of the potentiality of a new form of
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fascism, right? And populism, that's really and.
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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
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child of the Second World War, is a Japanese person who
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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
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at the moment. I picked up a book I had read a
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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
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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.
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Even if he's extremely elusive. At the end of of the day, you
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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
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Years Foundation. And when you click on his name
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expecting to find the whole biography, you just have written
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on the screen, a sort of very minimal and empty screen
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biography of on Kowara 29 days.
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And then there is a photo of his studio in black and white, which
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is kind of midway between bureaucratic setting and an
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artist studio with cupboards in the back with very high and thin
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doors. That suggests an incredible
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number of archives being kept behind them.
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So someone who was very reluctant in being presented as
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a life and much more keen to turn their life into art or art
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into life, what would I do? Do I talk about his biography?
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Do I talk about the work? So what I decided to do is
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perhaps to start with one of his last works and to honour this
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ethos, let's say, of the artist and describe the work that he
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started in 1993 called 1 Years Past and Future.
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What do you think, Libert? Did you think that's a good
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idea? Yes, and I think you would have
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liked. That on car, if you're
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listening, this is for you. So in 197071 he started a folder
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listing a million years from 1960 down.
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Then in 1980 in another folder he listed a million years into
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the future. So there's a gap between 71 and
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1980, and in 1993 he joined those two works in the form of
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readings. So two people read, 1 reads the
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odd numbers, the other one reads the other numbers.
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The odd numbers are read by a male identifying person and the
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other numbers are read by a female identifying person.
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A non binary person can choose one of the two and these are
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performative work so they read in front of an audience.
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They take a lot of time obviously and they have been
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performed all over the world. So this is just to give you an
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idea of the type of materials that On Kawara was working with.
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So notions as vast as time and space in some ways, and the
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conventionalities that come attached to those two concepts.
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So dates, counting lists, binders and paintings, because
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obviously we're talking about an exhibition that is Paintings on
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the Wall. So basically this is what we're
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talking about when we're talking about the work of On Kowara.
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With this project that you just described is ongoing, it's still
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alive, it's not there but and it's it's going to carry on for
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many years because that 1 year reading backwards
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and forwards will take a long time to put together.
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So on Kawara biography, he was born in 1932 in Karia, in a
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small town in Japan, and he died in New York in 2014.
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The major episode of his life was obviously the Nagasaki and
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Hiroshima bombings when he was 12 years old.
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And it kind of marked a rupture in his personality.
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He had been, up until then, a studious young little boy.
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And from then onward, when he was in class and a teacher would
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ask him something, he would say, I don't understand.
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He was unyielding. And from that point onward, he
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felt like he didn't believe anything.
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So the system of belief cracked within himself.
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If you compare to Yoko Ono, it's a completely different way of
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relating to the same horrendous episodes of Yoko Ono would
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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
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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.
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Then from what we understand, it really closed down.
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It kind of shut down. We I do not understand and not
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wanted to move or engage in any ways.
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So that kind of places him outside of the realm of the
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disgust things because he don't doesn't understand them.
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So he embraced a sort of nihilistic perspective on life.
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In 1951, he moved to Tokyo. He met a number of artists in a
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bookshop where, for someone who didn't understand, he read quite
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voraciously. So he devoured Freud's writings,
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Marx's writings, the existentialists, Sartre and
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Camus in particular. So he was very well read.
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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.
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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.
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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,
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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.