On Kawara (29,771 days) was an artist whose practice, developed over five decades, examined chronological time as a structuring condition of human existence. Working across painting, drawing, books, and sound, he established a sustained, methodical approach that registered the passage of time through standardized, rule-based forms. His work operates between the particularities of daily life and broader questions of duration, place, and presence.
Born in Kariya, Japan, Kawara moved to Tokyo in 1951, where he became active within postwar artistic circles. In 1959 he relocated to Mexico City, where he studied modern art and traveled extensively. Between 1962 and 1964 he lived between New York and Paris, before settling in New York, which remained his primary base. Throughout his life, he continued to work while traveling internationally.
Kawara was closely associated with the emergence of conceptual art in New York during the 1960s. On January 4, 1966, he began the Date Paintings (Today series), a project that continued until 2013 and was produced in locations around the world. Organized into distinct series, his work functions as a cumulative record that allows multiple readings of time, geography, and consciousness.
Kawara first exhibited in Tokyo in the early 1950s. His work has been included in major survey exhibitions such as Information at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1970), and 1965–1975: Reconsidering the Object of Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1995). Solo exhibitions include presentations at Kunsthalle Bern and the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (1974); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1980), traveling to Museum Folkwang, Essen; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and The National Museum of Art, Osaka; a touring exhibition from 1991 to 1993 at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Deichtorhallen Hamburg; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and exhibitions at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Munich, and Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2000–2001).
Kawara’s first exhibition at Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf, took place in 1971. His work is held in numerous public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate, UK; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Kunstmuseum Basel; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; and Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.