I Got Up...
On Kawara
Japanese, 1933–2014
1970
A stamped-ink postcard on which On Kawara turns the simple fact of waking into art by stamping a terse record of when he got up onto an ordinary city photograph.
You notice an everyday cityscape—wide avenue, rows of trees and a monumental government-like building—made uncanny by a blunt black stamp that reads the artist’s waking time, converting a private routine into an official-looking statement.
Part of Kawara’s systematic interventions in the 1960s–70s, this work reframes daily life as a serialized, self-documenting act and helped push conceptual art toward time, presence, and the art of record-keeping.
Medium
Stamped ink on postcard
Dimensions
4 x 5 3/4" (10.2 x 14.6 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
The Seth Siegelaub Collection. Gift of Richard S. Zeisler (by exchange)
Accession
324.2010.7
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
