On Kawara

21 Nov 2024-1 Jan 2025

Overview

David Zwirner is pleased to announce two exhibitions of paintings by On Kawara (1932–2014), which will be on view concurrently at the gallery’s London and Paris locations. The presentations are organized in collaboration with the One Million Years Foundation, established by the artist during his lifetime to ensure the legacy of his work and fluid approach to his practice. These exhibitions are the gallery’s first presentations of Kawara’s work since his death in 2014 and offer a rare opportunity to view two significant bodies of paintings by the artist. 
 
On view in London will be twenty-four paintings from Kawara’s signature Today series—known collectively as his “Date Paintings”—spanning almost the entire range of the body of work from 1966, the year he began the series, to 2012, shortly before its conclusion. Deceptively simple, each composition—which consists of a date rendered in a distinctive sans-serif typeface created by the artist against a monochromatic ground—is the result of an established protocol and series of decisions that are at once highly ordered and situationally responsive. Through their straightforward and direct composition, these works suggest a profound message, addressing not only the passage of time but the nature of consciousness itself. 
 
Kawara’s first exhibition with David Zwirner took place in 1999. During his lifetime, the gallery mounted five solo presentations of the artist’s work, with subsequent shows taking place in 2001, 2004, 2009, and 2012. Learn more about the upcoming presentation in Paris.
 

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