On Kawara I Am Still Alive Mail Art Chris Burden
On Kawara died on July 10, 2014. He was 81 years quondam. The artist's death was somehow the final human action of his art. It was not hurried. Kawara's decease realizes the ghostliness of the art itself – the otherworldliness of "I am still alive" is realized when it becomes on some level untrue, or at least ontologically more complicated.
Kawara's work is about the fleeting aliveness of everything. The condition of the artist as he created his date paintings every day, or the transitory style that the language of the art works is the focus. The concept of what came to exist called conceptual art is this: that at the baseline of every work of art at that place is this statement. I am withal alive.
On Kawara's One Million Years
If everything else is washed out there's ever yet this. That someone was there, someone was alive on that date. We date things. Dates are a demonstration of aliveness – y'all finish being "dated" after you lot die. The dates given adjacent to a name – open up ended if the person is alive, and airtight if dead – point exactly the dates or years that a person was alive. To confirm that Kawara had died you might have gone to Wikipedia to see the artist's entry – at present somehow complete with the closing date.
These dates bracket the possibility of a life inside a time. Kawara, who stubbornly recorded his dates of life, sent telegrams stating that he was alive, and tweeted that he was alive, somehow lives beyond the endmost bracket of his ain decease. The date paintings, collectively called the Today Series, are a simple meditative reminder of time. "The project is designed to end the day he does," said an undated essay on Phaidon's website.
The Today Series
Simply I'd contend that the "stop" of Kawara is not the end of the project. Actually, the end of Kawara'southward life is like a realization of the completion of the Today Series. Information technology couldn't exist completed until the artist's life was over – because the work is the artist'southward life. This meditative practice of painting the days simultaneously reduces the feel of living to a series of dates and forces a dramatic expansion. It signifies everything that is absent-minded. In Kawara's absenteeism now nosotros are left with everything rather than null.
On Kawara'due south I GOT Up Postcards
When I first encountered the I GOT Up postcards at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, I was moved to tears. The cards aren't fifty-fifty hand written. I GOT UP, is made with a stamp of some kind. On the forepart of the cards there are scenes from 1970'due south New York City. The best-known cards are addressed to John Baldessari, only these aren't the only cards Kawara sent. This is roughly the same time that Kawara started the I AM STILL Alive telegraphs – which became the I AM Still Alive tweets.
Similar the Today Series the postcards are moving in their absolute ontological intimacy. If you were to say one truthful affair what could y'all say? I AM ALIVE. I GOT UP. Those would be options. These are things that you could be reasonably sure would exist understood. These works are as well most intimacy, relationships, and communication – on a basic level this is what nosotros say to each other over and over again. I am live, I'grand here, I sympathize.
Kawara's Twitter bot lives on. As of this writing the @on_kawara account has tweeted "I AM STILL ALIVE #fine art" either two or three times since the artist's decease – the Twitter account relayed the message on the day of his death, and it's difficult to know based on the media reports if Kawara was actually even so alive at the time of the tweet. Somehow, the Twitter bot that is repeating this statement is a perfect realization of Kawara's work. It should be regarded equally a new piece of work – a piece that Kawara created that continues after his expiry.
On Kawara's Twitter Account
Kawara's Twitter bot continues to do what he did in life – even though he is no longer alive. It reminds united states of america of being alive, and of what that means. It also raises what are perhaps even more interesting questions about what it means to exist live: in a bizarre way the Twitter bot is successfully passing a complicated Turing examination. It is creating fine art. The Twitter bot says "I AM STILL Live" and I believe it.
ON KAWARA IS Nonetheless Live was last modified: July twelfth, 2014 by
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