DEC. 12, 1979
On Kawara
Japanese, 1933–2014
1979
An acrylic-on-canvas Date Painting in which On Kawara precisely painted the day it was made—DEC. 12, 1979—as a deliberate record and meditation on time.
What strikes you is the stark, centered band of crisp white letters and numerals set against an unmodulated black field, giving the ordinary calendar date an almost monumental, stamped presence.
Part of Kawara’s serial Date Paintings, this work turns a banal entry on a calendar into a durational conceptual project that foregrounds ritual, the passage of time, and art as existential record.
Medium
Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions
18 1/4 x 24 3/8" (46.4 x 62.5 cm), box 2 x 25 x 19" (5.1.x 63.5 x 48.3 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund
Accession
61.1981.1-2
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
