One Kawara

One Kawara , born in 1932 with Kariya with the Japan, is a contemporary artist, famous for his series of dates painted day after day since the end of the year 1960.

Biography

Autodidact, One Kawara carries out his first sculptures in 1953. As from 1959, it leaves Japan and travels to America and Europe. As from 1966, it develops proposals conceptual and autoréférencées on the flow of the temps.
Cet very particular artist its life of its work does not dissociate at all and wishes that its biography respect the rigorous principle which governs the whole of its work; i.e. the simple calculation of the days. For example at October 1st, 1994 its biography is of 22 559 days.

Work

One Kawara can be associated with the Conceptual art as from 1966 or it gives up more traditional said painting. Its work is based on the concept of time, but a rather cold, rigid, mechanical “time”. A “time” which is only one simple report. It uses the principle of the calendar to represent it. Thus its work is made fabrics of various sizes, the majority black but all monochromic, with in their medium the current date. Its rule is never not to devote more than twenty-four hours to each work. The way in which the date is registered depends on the place or is the artist thus, often in English because he lives with New York but also in many other languages and notations since he travels enormously. Each table is arranged in a box with its size with a newspaper cutting corresponding to the day of the table.

It uses also other means of giving an account of time. On the one hand by the sending of letters, postcards, etc (called the postal Art) posting the message “I' m still alive” or “I got up At…” followed exact hour. And in addition plans of cities with the courses which it carries out as well as statements of people met, or books read.

It exposes also named books One Million Years past in 1971 and One future Years Million in 1983 when are registered on their pages every year composing a million of years, with a rate of 500 years per page is 2000 pages per million years.

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