On Kawara Exhibition

Take Ninagawa is pleased to present an exhibition of On Kawara, featuring works from the artist’s I Got Up (1968–79) in conjunction with the gallery’s concurrent exhibition of Man Ray. Produced over the course of 12 years, I Got Up comprises postcards that On Kawara sent every day to friends, family members, collectors, and colleagues, each stamped with the time at which he got out of bed. Through the mass-produced format of the postcard, the repeated gesture of stamping, and the standardized system of the mail, Kawara injected the most intimate facts of daily life into broader systems governing contemporary society while also giving materiality to the passage of time itself. The work also reflects Kawara’s trajectory from his early Surrealist-inspired figuration to Conceptual art, as seen in postcards addressed to figures such as William Copley, an artist and gallerist who was closely associated with Man Ray. Taken together with the gallery’s concurrent exhibition of Man Ray, this presentation of selected works from I Got Up offers an opportunity to consider Kawara’s practice in relation to broader artistic networks connecting Surrealism, Conceptual art, and the everyday structures through which experience is recorded and transmitted.