On Kawara: Date Paintings

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 a 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 his paintings.

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 this body of work from 1966, the year Kawara began the series, to 2012, shortly before its conclusion, the exhibition will feature a representative selection that includes several large-scale paintings, a diptych made in Mexico City in April 1968, and one painting from every year of the 1970s. Viewed together, these paintings showcase both the formal and conceptual breadth of this decades-long project. 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.

Learn more about the concurrent presentation in Paris.

Read "Not Understanding, Not Knowing: The Existentialism of On Kawara," a new essay by the curator and writer Jonathan Watkins.