December 12 1979 on kawara biography

The 1980s

INTRO

This is a different kind of essay. It covers a million and ten years instead of one. How's that for a change of pace?

When on September 18, 1979, On Kawara stopped his three daily series, he pulled down the shutters (as Jonathan Watkins puts it in a 2016 essay).

December 12 1979 on kawara biography

No postcards with their getting up time would be available from this day. No 'I MET' lists, and no 'I WENT' maps either.

There is a second loss which is also significant. The book On Kawara continuity/discontinuity 1963 -1979, reproduced the artist's Journals from 1966 to 1979.

These Journals continued to be produced, but they have not been disclosed to the world.

December 12 1979 on kawara biography in hindi

The information these provide is as follows:

- The day on which a Date was painted.
- It's size and colour
- The city or place in which it was made.

It's this info, combined with the daily self-observation series, that has been providing this biographer with his essential material.

Without it, what is this humble researcher left with