FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:


Stuart Regen Gallery
619 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Tel. (213) 276-5424
Fax. (213) 276-7430

ON KAWARA EXHIBITION
March 19 - April 16, 1991
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 - 6:00





The Stuart Regen Gallery is pleased to present recent “Date Paintings” by one of the foremost Conceptual artists, On Kawara. On view in the main gallery will be several of Kawara’s “Date Paintings,” varying in size and painted on monochromatic, blue-gray backgrounds.

Beginning in the 1960s Conceptual art set out to challenge the notion of the material art object. When Kawara painted his first “Date Painting” on January 4, 1966, he inaugurated the “Today Series,” an ongoing body of work now numbering more than 1500 canvases. In contrast to the other series which form part of Kawara’s oeuvre-- “I Went,” “I Read,” “I Met,” postcards saying “I Got Up At...,” telegrams announcing “I Am Still Alive,” as well as the 100 Years Calendar, and the One Million Years - Past and One MillionYears - Future volumes--the “Today Series” takes the form of traditional paintings.

By its designation of the date on which the work was created each painting in the “Today Series” represents a single day. Letters, numerals and punctuation marks, scaled to a pre-determined sized canvas, are hand-painted horizontally across its center. The monochromatic canvases range from cerulean blue, to blue-gray, to red. Each painting is accompanied by a subtitle and also a hand-made box that contains part of a newspaper from the day and the city where the work was painted. The subtitles range in content from long quotes to short phrases, from a notation of a personal thought to an international event. The box affirms the painting’s definition as an object while the subtitles and newspaper anchor and juxtapose the work of art to existing, daily reality.

Kawara has exhibited extensively throughout the United States as well as abroad. His oeuvre has also been the subject of numerous books, catalogues, and essays.






For further information please contact Stuart Regen or Shaun Caley at the gallery.