On Kawara, Recently Deceased

An artist I enjoyed.  Herewith, this from la fromagerie ...

Kawara's big thing was painting the date.  Here's an example ...

He never painted random or selected dates.  He only painted the date of the day he was making the painting.  If you're with me there.  Were it me and I had come up with the idea, I'd immediately paint something that looked like SEPT.30,1953 because I'm an egomaniac and that's my birthday.

Not so much my boy On.  And if he couldn't get the painting done before midnight of that particular day he destroyed it.  Which I admire.

There is a school of thought that says this is total bullshit.  But if you stood in a room filled with his date paintings it didn't feel that way.

Sometimes he'd throw in a blue one or a red one, but mostly he was a black and white guy ...

And if you bought one of his paintings it came is a lovely little wooden box, sometimes lined with newspaper clippings of the day he painted it.

Here's the chant from The 13th Warrior.   Skip to the 2:45 mark if you can't stand the Antonio Banderas cheeseball stuff ...