Research on Fiction – (1) Dates, On Kawara
허구 탐구 - (1) 날짜들, 온 카와라: 문소영
Original text by So Young, Moon
번역: 김미혜
Translated by Mihye Kim
I have once found myself thinking about something fictitious but old. Existence shall be a prerequisite for something to last and be outdated—so how can something that has never existed in the first place become old? Fiction means weaving something empty together. To convey something unsubstantial, it braids voidness together to clothes what has never once existed in the outer cover of a narrative. Voidness is unbreakable as being empty; yet to protect what has no substance, fiction goes on endlessly wrapping around nothingness. The unknown is a future we have not yet reached, but it is also a kind of illusion that makes us believe that something must exist there.
Time is fiction. No one has ever witnessed or touched it. For time, beginnings and endings are merely provisional conditions; it is infinite itself. Is time eternal? Or did it never exist in the first place? Time cannot be seen, heard, or held in the hand; yet it makes us realize the life with repetition and changes as something special, or renders it futile, or even binds us. In order to govern this irresolute thing called time, humans divided it into numbers and language. When I imagine the process by which time—while we cannot know its substance—was arranged into words and forms we can understand, I even begin to think that science itself shall be a true art. In virtue of time that has been systematized, we are able to assign coordinates to memory. Instead of being lost in vague duration of time, we can use seasons and dates to share “which today”, among countless todays, we commemorate or celebrate. When speaking about art, it is impossible to leave out time. That is because art emerges only after long time process of work and sensations learned through life. Especially when discussing painting, I find myself reflecting on how the observing time became embodied and turned into mental imagery, and how those experiences continued onto the canvas. Of course, it is true that the time and space addressed in art are far from the time of economic or scientific logic. But why am I into keeping tying them together? I once thought painting was the act of giving shelter to nameless sensations. I thought that perhaps it is the work of finding romance in things so quiet that they vanish without ever being remembered in endlessly flowing time. A faint sense of shame was accompanied as self-pity might have brought such idea into my mind.
If time is mutable, each of life-living ones should be responsible for understanding it. Perhaps getting by without incident might be the most difficult task of all. Simply being alive is already a great achievement. On Kawara (1932-2014) has recorded approximately 3,000 “days” for nearly fifty years, since January 4, 1966. Not every single date of that half-century was recorded—some days were painted into two or three pieces of work, while some other days were not recorded at all. Imposing the temporal limit of a “single day”, he discarded any painting that was not completed by midnight. An unfinished state could itself have been an honest record, but what was the reason that he insisted on destroying it? Because the date being painted was not a mere notation; it had to correspond to the time the artist had actually lived, functioning as a kind of landscape that revealed an individual’s perspective. To emphasize the day to which he belonged, he strictly observed the deadline of midnight. Judging from his manner of work to remove all visible brushstrokes—leaving only the nuance of painting behind—we could also guess that he did not wish to expose any ounce of the narrative or emotion that an unfinished state might suggest. The form of each date followed the language and notational system of the place where he was staying. The record was not so much written as it was rendered in the format of painting. A painting proves rather than explains something. A living hand carefully drew this form; it signals that an unknown figure once occupied the spatiotemporal coordinates proved by the date. Through the attitude of painting, the work secures individuality and vitality. The background color was newly mixed and applied on the day. Though the works of adjacent dates appear almost identical or similar in tone, subtle differences are noticed when they are placed side by side. Just like an enlightenment revealed in the place where afflictions have been overcome through disciplined practice, these restrained records gradually cease to appear as mere letters or dates, but instead, reveal the very shape of the time in which On Kawara existed. At times, they intertwine with the viewer’s own memories, extending into yet another layer of time. What remains is not a narrative any more, but simply the fact that someone once stayed in a particular time and space. A few years after beginning the Date Paintings, Kawara began to often affix a newspaper published on the corresponding date inside the box where each painting was stored. The articles are not immediately visible, yet by being preserved alongside the work, the newspaper provides a subtle clue to the day that was painted.
Kawara concealed himself so thoroughly that he did not even appear at his own exhibition openings, and it is said that he rarely appeared in public, such as for interviews. It seems less that he was avoiding people, and more that he believed the visible presence of the artist could interfere with the meaning he wished to convey. With extreme rigor, he sought ways for the work itself to emerge as a self-contained language. It is said that On Kawara had little interest in how his work was interpreted or exhibited. What mattered to him was connecting one stretch of time to another through the medium of record, and generating a relationship between the one who provides the materials and the one who browses them. Time may be infinite, but life is finite, and only a small portion of it will be remembered. What connects and concretizes time is not the sudden eruption of events, but the everyday life that continues like waves. While an event isolates time as something separate, the everyday life embodies time as a familiar sensation. Kawara’s works, as records, do not attempt to explain something. Rather, they allow viewers to summon up their own memories and embodied sensations. By revealing no specific narrative or event and by presenting only the date—like a clean and neat metaphor—he separates event from time. It is impossible to grasp everything that happened on a given date, yet it is possible to place within the date the time that I know. The dates that Kawara recorded with near-obsessive dedication do more than mark an individual’s time. They reveal the steady persistence of the everyday even within the endlessly expanding and dispersing flow of time. In his daily life as well, Kawara disclosed as little personal information as possible. As mentioned earlier, this attitude seems less about reflecting or fixing a personal identity in the dates, and more about enacting the mutability of time itself—revealing, in an ambivalent way, both its depth and its ambiguity.
The reason we wish to be remembered by someone may not be so much to announce who we are, but to feel that we are alive. We would hope to confirm—through being remembered—that our lives were not in vain, even if we are swept away and disappeared by time as it flows and collapses without delay. The work of On Kawara allows us to measure just how immensely and ceaselessly time flows. At the same time, it suggests that someone once existed there within that vast—as the universe—and sometimes hollow current of time. It also implies that I too shall be part of that time through the painting. Time becomes deep and vivid only through absence. And art compels us to reflect once more on what is absent and what ought to be remembered. If so, perhaps fiction is not a device for deception or illusion, but an attitude for holding on to things that so easily collapse.
2026.3. ACK 발행. ACK (artcritickorea) 글의 저작권은 필자에게 있습니다. March. 2026. Published by ACK. The copyright of the article published by ACK is owned by its author.
Research on Fiction – (1) Dates, On Kawara
허구 탐구 - (1) 날짜들, 온 카와라: 문소영
Original text by So Young, Moon
번역: 김미혜
Translated by Mihye Kim
I have once found myself thinking about something fictitious but old. Existence shall be a prerequisite for something to last and be outdated—so how can something that has never existed in the first place become old? Fiction means weaving something empty together. To convey something unsubstantial, it braids voidness together to clothes what has never once existed in the outer cover of a narrative. Voidness is unbreakable as being empty; yet to protect what has no substance, fiction goes on endlessly wrapping around nothingness. The unknown is a future we have not yet reached, but it is also a kind of illusion that makes us believe that something must exist there.
Time is fiction. No one has ever witnessed or touched it. For time, beginnings and endings are merely provisional conditions; it is infinite itself. Is time eternal? Or did it never exist in the first place? Time cannot be seen, heard, or held in the hand; yet it makes us realize the life with repetition and changes as something special, or renders it futile, or even binds us. In order to govern this irresolute thing called time, humans divided it into numbers and language. When I imagine the process by which time—while we cannot know its substance—was arranged into words and forms we can understand, I even begin to think that science itself shall be a true art. In virtue of time that has been systematized, we are able to assign coordinates to memory. Instead of being lost in vague duration of time, we can use seasons and dates to share “which today”, among countless todays, we commemorate or celebrate. When speaking about art, it is impossible to leave out time. That is because art emerges only after long time process of work and sensations learned through life. Especially when discussing painting, I find myself reflecting on how the observing time became embodied and turned into mental imagery, and how those experiences continued onto the canvas. Of course, it is true that the time and space addressed in art are far from the time of economic or scientific logic. But why am I into keeping tying them together? I once thought painting was the act of giving shelter to nameless sensations. I thought that perhaps it is the work of finding romance in things so quiet that they vanish without ever being remembered in endlessly flowing time. A faint sense of shame was accompanied as self-pity might have brought such idea into my mind.
If time is mutable, each of life-living ones should be responsible for understanding it. Perhaps getting by without incident might be the most difficult task of all. Simply being alive is already a great achievement. On Kawara (1932-2014) has recorded approximately 3,000 “days” for nearly fifty years, since January 4, 1966. Not every single date of that half-century was recorded—some days were painted into two or three pieces of work, while some other days were not recorded at all. Imposing the temporal limit of a “single day”, he discarded any painting that was not completed by midnight. An unfinished state could itself have been an honest record, but what was the reason that he insisted on destroying it? Because the date being painted was not a mere notation; it had to correspond to the time the artist had actually lived, functioning as a kind of landscape that revealed an individual’s perspective. To emphasize the day to which he belonged, he strictly observed the deadline of midnight. Judging from his manner of work to remove all visible brushstrokes—leaving only the nuance of painting behind—we could also guess that he did not wish to expose any ounce of the narrative or emotion that an unfinished state might suggest. The form of each date followed the language and notational system of the place where he was staying. The record was not so much written as it was rendered in the format of painting. A painting proves rather than explains something. A living hand carefully drew this form; it signals that an unknown figure once occupied the spatiotemporal coordinates proved by the date. Through the attitude of painting, the work secures individuality and vitality. The background color was newly mixed and applied on the day. Though the works of adjacent dates appear almost identical or similar in tone, subtle differences are noticed when they are placed side by side. Just like an enlightenment revealed in the place where afflictions have been overcome through disciplined practice, these restrained records gradually cease to appear as mere letters or dates, but instead, reveal the very shape of the time in which On Kawara existed. At times, they intertwine with the viewer’s own memories, extending into yet another layer of time. What remains is not a narrative any more, but simply the fact that someone once stayed in a particular time and space. A few years after beginning the Date Paintings, Kawara began to often affix a newspaper published on the corresponding date inside the box where each painting was stored. The articles are not immediately visible, yet by being preserved alongside the work, the newspaper provides a subtle clue to the day that was painted.
Kawara concealed himself so thoroughly that he did not even appear at his own exhibition openings, and it is said that he rarely appeared in public, such as for interviews. It seems less that he was avoiding people, and more that he believed the visible presence of the artist could interfere with the meaning he wished to convey. With extreme rigor, he sought ways for the work itself to emerge as a self-contained language. It is said that On Kawara had little interest in how his work was interpreted or exhibited. What mattered to him was connecting one stretch of time to another through the medium of record, and generating a relationship between the one who provides the materials and the one who browses them. Time may be infinite, but life is finite, and only a small portion of it will be remembered. What connects and concretizes time is not the sudden eruption of events, but the everyday life that continues like waves. While an event isolates time as something separate, the everyday life embodies time as a familiar sensation. Kawara’s works, as records, do not attempt to explain something. Rather, they allow viewers to summon up their own memories and embodied sensations. By revealing no specific narrative or event and by presenting only the date—like a clean and neat metaphor—he separates event from time. It is impossible to grasp everything that happened on a given date, yet it is possible to place within the date the time that I know. The dates that Kawara recorded with near-obsessive dedication do more than mark an individual’s time. They reveal the steady persistence of the everyday even within the endlessly expanding and dispersing flow of time. In his daily life as well, Kawara disclosed as little personal information as possible. As mentioned earlier, this attitude seems less about reflecting or fixing a personal identity in the dates, and more about enacting the mutability of time itself—revealing, in an ambivalent way, both its depth and its ambiguity.
The reason we wish to be remembered by someone may not be so much to announce who we are, but to feel that we are alive. We would hope to confirm—through being remembered—that our lives were not in vain, even if we are swept away and disappeared by time as it flows and collapses without delay. The work of On Kawara allows us to measure just how immensely and ceaselessly time flows. At the same time, it suggests that someone once existed there within that vast—as the universe—and sometimes hollow current of time. It also implies that I too shall be part of that time through the painting. Time becomes deep and vivid only through absence. And art compels us to reflect once more on what is absent and what ought to be remembered. If so, perhaps fiction is not a device for deception or illusion, but an attitude for holding on to things that so easily collapse.
2026.3. ACK 발행. ACK (artcritickorea) 글의 저작권은 필자에게 있습니다. March. 2026. Published by ACK. The copyright of the article published by ACK is owned by its author.