On Kawara - One Million Years (Reading)

In the organizer's words:

Visitors to the current collection presentation In Your Time. Traces of Weight at the Kunstmuseum Bremerhaven have already been able to hear the different voices alternately reciting dates from the past and the future. This impressive sound installation is part of On Kawara's work One Million Years (Past and Future), in which the Japanese artist systematically lists the dates of two million years. The work also includes the performance One Million Years (Reading) - a live reading of the years in English.

Using his typewriter, Kawara produced ten folders of One Million Years (Past) in 1969 and expanded the project in 1980 with ten more folders of One Million Years (Future). Together, the two series comprise around 20,000 pages and form the backbone of one of the artist's most important and far-reaching works. In 1993, Kawara added live and recorded readings to the project.

By hosting the performance, the Kunstmuseum Bremerhaven joins a list of over 45 renowned institutions that have continued the work since 1993. Previous venues include New York, Paris, London, the Documenta and the Venice Biennale. Each of these performances will be documented for the One Million Years Foundation, which was established by On Kawara to preserve his artistic legacy and pass on his visionary philosophy.

On Kawara (1932-2014), born in Kariya, Japan, is one of the most important conceptual artists of the 20th century. He became particularly well known for his Date Paintings from the Today series, in which he precisely captured the passing of days and thus thematized the universality and transience of human experience. In Bremerhaven, the Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst showed his exhibition Postcards as early as 1977, followed by Telegramme (1980) and 4 DATE PAINTINGS (1982). Kawara lived and worked for many years in New York, where he died in 2014.