EARLY ON
TOKYO STUDIO
INTRO
This summer of 2024 has been so busy for me. No time for Date Paintings and no time for On Kawara essays. As with the previous essay concerning 1954, if I don't begin and finish this today, I'll have to destroy it. (Alternatively, I may just find a day next week to polish it off.)
Another reason why it is a month since I last wrote an essay in this section, is that I've been waiting for a book to get to me from Japan. On Kawara: 1952-1956 Tokyo was published in 1991. It is a much more formidable and comprehensive publication than the Western world - specifically Frankfurt - came up with in 1994 when a version of the show was shown there, presumably organised by Kasper König. It cost me £150 but I have never yet regretted investing in an On Kawara book. As it's getting scarce, I will be generous with my reproductions of its plates, a strategy for which I continue to thank the Million Years Foundation.
This essay will focus on eight large paintings that On Kawara made in 1955 and 1956. But I also need to include a large drawing that was made in 1954. All nine works have artist-made frames that break up the rectangle, a continuation of what On Kawara was doing in the Warehouse series of drawings.
On Kawara, Dump, 1954. 59cm by 76 cm.
In the above scenario, On Kawara has packed in the bodies, many of them pregnant women. That is, people, reminiscent of the Bathroom series. Though they aren't pock-marked, there is plenty of dismemberment going on. Chopped off body parts. The vacant space placed diagonally up the middle of the painting could be sky or river, depending on how you think of it. It could also be void. At the dump, people are close to the void. Some body parts are falling down into the void. There are no whole bodies or heads doing the falling. That's the nearest you can come to saying something positive about the scene. Actually, I think that is a few heads that are plummeting towards the void. Maybe not even a little hope after all.
What happens when you look at the scene after rotating it by 180 degrees? Upside down, as it were. Certainly, the artist would have been looking at it this way when he was doing much of the incredibly detailed drawing. 
On Kawara, Dump, 1954. 59cm by 76 cm.
Now that is more positive. Body parts drifting up to heaven!
Give the composition another turn, clockwise of 90 degrees, and the scene is different yet again. 
On Kawara, Dump, 1954. 59cm by 76 cm.
This multiple perspective aspect was clearly important to the artist and I will retain it throughout my examination of these nine pictures. Though I'm not going to turn Dump another time. I simply must get on with this piece of writing.
All the essays that appear in the Japanese version of On Kawara: 1952-1956 Tokyo include mention of the Korean War. This clearly had a significant impact on the Japanese psyche. There was almost a feeling of freedom following the defeat of Japan in WW2 in August 1945. But the Korean War (1950 to 1953) put an end to that era and brought about a time of anxiety and disillusion for the people of Japan, in some ways worse than WW2 itself. On Kawara was not immune to any of this. China backed North Korea which attacked the South. America backed South Korea and bombed the hell out of the North. The whole of Korea had been a Japanese colony for 35 years of the Twentieth Century and so the Japanese felt they had stake in what was happening there. Though they could only watch. On Kawara's obsession with the Vietnam War may have been to some extent an extension of his dismay at the Korean War.
ONE: 1955
I don't know what order the four paintings of 1955 were made in. So I'll talk about them in whatever order comes to mind. This first one, Flood, seems like a natural extension of the Warehouse series. However, it is a lot bigger. Approximately four times as wide and four times as high as the smaller and more common size of Warehouse Drawing
On Kawara, Flood, 1955 170cm by 203 cm.
Ants are crawling over everything. What is everything? It could be tree branches or roots. It could be metal tubing. Octopus limbs? There is nothing overtly human in the scene. The title makes one assume that the blue at the top of the scene is water. Would it make any difference if the patch of water was at the bottom of the composition? Well, let's try that out:
On Kawara, Flood, 1955 170cm by 203 cm.
That makes me see a grey liquid at the top. Which I wasn't noticing before. So the blue represents the sky and the grey the water. This particular image doesn't require to be looked at from different viewpoints, but by doing so one does notice more.
I'll consider the other grey composition now. It's called Birth of the Illegitimate Child and is nearly as full of people as Dump was. This is the correct way up, the way the picture is reproduced in the aforementioned Japanese book I am using as source:
On Kawara, Birth of the Illegitimate Child, 1955 132cm by 194cm.
One wishes to have a better look at the figure emerging from the right side of the composition. So let's give it a 90 degree turn:
On Kawara, Birth of the Illegitimate Child, 1955 132cm by 194cm.
She is dressed as a bride. She has what I take to be a flower in one hand and is stabbing a knife through child's belly with the other. Her own baby? For Birth of the Illegitimate Child see and read Death of the Illegitimate Child? There are a lot of heads nearby, many of them in what looks like a coffin. Death of the Illegitimate Generation? What happened to the Baby Boomer generation?
Let's try another angle:
On Kawara, Birth of the Illegitimate Child, 1955 132cm by 194cm.
The above gives a clear view of another woman spread out on what is now the floor. She is giving birth, but the child may be destined for the bucket that lies on its side near the emerging head. Woe is that child. Woe the generation of whom On Kawara is thinking. Japan circa 1945? Korea circa 1950?
What a lot of pregnant bellies. One fears for the children being born into this world. Are any of them 'legitimate'? Who is defining what legitimacy is? Maybe we have to wait until someone turns up and makes an announcement from the lectern that is half-hidden but in the middle of the composition. Most clearly seen from this angle.
This next one has an ironically cheerful title: Come On…My House. Below is the way it should be looked at, though it may seem upside down:
On Kawara, Come on…My House, 1955 125cm by 181cm.
Perhaps it's supposed to be looked at this way so as to emphasise the void. Which on this occasion is goldy bronze. The true colour of oblivion?
Giving the picture a 180 degree turn puts us face to face with a woman, and gives a clear view of another woman with a bottle held in one hand at the end of an outstretched arm. Are we partying either of these women's house?
To the left of the scene there is a table on which there is an abundance of food and drink.
On Kawara, Come on…My House, 1955 125cm by 181cm.
Let's explore further:
On Kawara, Come on…My House, 1955 125cm by 181cm.
The man now upright looks worried. He is naked and in possession of both a bottle and a glass. But his brow is furrowed and he seems to staring into the abyss. I take the coloured space to be the void the was present in Dump. A whole lot of dismembered heads seem to line the edge of the void. They would, wouldn't they?
"Come on…My House…the Void."
One more spin:
On Kawara, Come on…My House, 1955 125cm by 181cm.
Now I'm seeing a guy forcing his way into the top right corner. "Hey, Joe, where are you going with that knife in your hand?" A couple of dismembered heads look dismayed in his direction. What body parts has he got filling the box that he's carrying and the pot that's just behind him?
"Come on…My House…Death and dismemberment."
What was happening in Japan in 1955? The book On Kawara: 1952-1956 Tokyo provides an answer to this in an original way. A section printed on thinner, yellower paper provides headlines from Japanese papers every day from Jan 1, 1952 to 31 December 1956. This is a nod to On Kawara's post-1966 activity of reading the paper every day and clipping stories from the paper on days that he made Date Paintings.
It seems that there was no war going on in 1955:
April 29, 1955
Deadly school excursion: 2 children in serious condition in mother-offspring suicide during lunchtime.
May 2, 1955
Alcoholics Anonymous members join families in cherry-blossom viewing gathering, minus sake cups.
May 19, 1955
Drunken man found walking with murdered child on his back caught by a junior high school student.
Let's pass onto the fourth and last of the paintings from 1955. This is the correct view of it, per the signature line:
On Kawara, Black Soldier, 1955. 1675cm by 201cm.
The 'black soldier' appears to be falling. Why 'black'? Because of the darkness of the well he is falling down? 
On Kawara, Black Soldier, 1955. 1675cm by 201cm.
From the above perspective the soldier could be climbing. 
On Kawara, Black Soldier, 1955. 1675cm by 201cm.
From the above perspective the soldier really would seem to be climbing. Using the steel piping as a ladder.
So I'm going back to the first viewpoint, the only one that seems to work in this context:
On Kawara, Black Soldier, 1955. 1675cm by 201cm.
The black rubber calls out to the black metal lining of the well. Black falling into the black.
The crotch of the soldier is intriguingly blank. No sign of genitals or anus. Which makes one think that the soldier is not fully human. The not fully human being is falling into the nation state's nation's arsehole. Though I don't think On Kawara would have expressed himself in such an ostensibly vulgar way.
Let me return to the headlines from 1955 to see if I can make anything of this:
October 5, 1955
Excessive mental labour and cigarette smoking causes high blood pressure.
October 6, 1955
Girl suffering from nervous breakdown attempted suicide from 25 metre chimney.
October 30, 1955
Elderly artist arriving in Tokyo gets big jolt, told mistake was made in reporting his work as accepted for Nitten Exhibition.
I have reviewed the headlines of the papers much too briefly, conscious that I must get in with this piece.
TWO: 1956
Another four paintings. Again I'll take them in an order that seems to make sense.
This is another obliquely military one. 
On Kawara, Stones Thrown, 1956. 184cm by 265cm.
I imagine that is the wheels of a tank or an armoured car, bearing down on sticks and stones. No contest really. American or Chinese firepower versus the Koreans.
This next painting can also be discussed in a war context. 
On Kawara, Absentees, 1956. 1855cm by 212cm.
Are these political prisoners or imprisoned soldiers? The title suggests that they should be somewhere else. On the battlefield? Safe at home? They still seem to have resolve and willpower despite the lack of space and food.
Let's see if the newspaper headlines tell us anything:
Aug 23, 1956
Remains of Japanese soldiers brought back from China
Sept 3, 1956
Repatriation ship Koan Maru to bring back former Japanese soldiers to Maizuru port from Siberia tomorrow.
Sept 15, 1956
Informal Japan-South Korea talks under way to discuss mutual release of prisoners.
October 20, 1956
Japanese repatriation from Soviet Union to be completed this year.
Dec 14 1956
All Japanese war prisoners to be freed; Moscow promulgate law allowing their repatriation.
This next painting is from an odd point of view: 
On Kawara, Golden Home, 1954. 207cm by 181cm.
The viewer is looking up from the ground to the underside of a stool and the underside of a table. The table and stool are covered by slugs which would seem to be especially fond of whatever was in the upturned pot. It's almost as if the pot is falling to the ground through the activity of the slugs.
There are also slugs crawling on the red circle pattern wall paper and the green square patterned floor covering. But the main colour is the glowing gold or bronze of the wooden table and stool. The same colour as the void in Come On…My House. Coincidence? I think not.
Is that a pile of wrapped presents on the stool? All wrapped in the same design of paper. It might be, but nevertheless the main thrust of the piece is filth. This is not a golden home, except superficially. Shit is obliquely referred to in several ways.
On Kawara's head is close to the ground. A ground to which he has sunk in despair. Not much of a choice, between worldly shit and eternal oblivion. Or at least that's how it strikes me.
Finally:
On Kawara, Untitled, 1956. 103cm by 125cm.
At least the painter is on his feet again. Or sitting at the table. This time the insects are worms. They would seem to have devoured a plateful of food. It may be that the artist has just taken the lid off a serving bowl to reveal the worms. In which case his hand is frozen in horror as the worms make good their escape having dined like kings.
That is a very quick analysis of nine complex pictures. I've been wanting to get to the following photograph of On Kawara that was taken in 1956. It is the only photo of his face that seems to exist. On Kawara would seem to have given his permission for it to appear in this book, published in Japan in 1991, but nowhere else. I mean, it doesn't crop up in any of the major post-1966 publications. Not in the Stockholm book or in Whole and Parts. Or in the Phaidon volume. Or in On Kawara: Silence.
I conclude from this that On Kawara didn't mind the photo being used in the context of when he felt he was a Japanese artist. But that he specifically didn't want any image of himself used when he'd internationalised himself. Mostly because he felt it would distract from the work.
But let's dwell on the photo at this point. First, let's check the little table out for slugs and check the ashtray out for worms. Done. Next, let's consider that the nine wonky-sided paintings behind him could be the very pictures that I've just taken us through.
On the left (see the dividing line?), from top to bottom, the ones without people:
Stones Thrown (184 x 265)
Golden Home (207 x 181)
Flood (174 x 203)
Untitled (103 x 125)
The fact that three of the paintings have (from bottom upwards) worms, ants and slugs as inhabitants, makes one think that the 'stones' in the fourth canvas are of some hard little unbreakable beetle species, immune to the heavy metal/rubber of China or America, both.
On the right (check again the dividing line), from top to bottom:
Absentees (185 x 212)
Black Soldier (167 x 201)
Birth of the Illegitimate Child (132 x 194)
Come on…My House (125 x 181)
Dump (59 x 76)
Birth of the Illegimate Child and Come On… My House are in some ways a close-up of what's happening in Dump, though both the bigger pictures are interiors. And Black Soldier could be seen as an extreme close-up of something that's happening in Dump (or Birth of an Illegitimate Child or Come On…My House). A guilty man falling into an abyss.
(Please don't take this division of paintings too literally. I haven't matched up the frame shapes. It's just another way into this set of pictures, another way of bringing out the connections and consistencies.)
What is the On Kawara of the photo saying to the viewer: "Come on over to my house. It's made of shit, with excellent access to a permanent void."
Actually, one can't be sure if this is a snap that has taken the painter off guard (after all On Kawara was famous in Japan at this time). Or a carefully composed portrait. Let's say the latter in order to justify what I've already said and what I'm about to say. The painter is shown smoking, close to a table supporting an ashtray. Ants, slugs, worms and now fags!
On Kawara: "Come on over to my house. It's made of ash, with superior access to a carcinogenic death."
The corner of a bed can be seen. On Kawara sleeps, paints and smokes. The set-up will be the same in New York when On Kawara paints Date Paintings in the same room as a bed.
Also in 1956, On Kawara drew a series of thirty death masks. Here they are:
On Kawara, Thanatophanies, Drawings made in 1956. Published as a set of 30 engravings in 1995.
All the faces seem to be black or oriental. Is this a reference to the victims of the atomic bomb? The smoke arising from below each individual, in most cases, would suggest radiation clouds. Or are these portraits simply the faces of smokers? I don't think so. Look at the first and the third portraits in the first row.
Or look at this sample chosen from the middle of the composition. 
On Kawara, Thanatophanies, 1956. (Sample 6 of 30.)
At some stage On Kawara decided he had had enough of Japan and needed to travel. A wise move, I'd say. There is a reference in the book that I've been consulting all through this essay to one more painting made in 1957. In fact, let me quote the full sentence:
'Though this book does not present all of Kawara's works in the 1950s - for example, it does not include Enemy (1957), in which a single human figure is trapped by flying disks of diminishing diameter at the end of an underground tunnel of bricks - it does represent a fairly comprehensive review of his 1950s works.'
How On Kawara would have distrusted the complacency of that sentence. It is from 'At the Junction of Time and Space', On Kawara in the 1950s, by Tadashi Yokoyama. Perhaps the sentence is typical of the absence of logic - and lack of precision - in post-War Japan, which the essay tells us that On Kawara had had enough of.
We will catch up with On Kawara nine years later. By which time he will have lived in Mexico, Paris and New York, and have learned to be fluent in the languages spoken in these places. On internationalised himself. It's called dragging oneself up by the bootstraps. 
On Kawara, Thanatophanies, 1956. (Sample 8 of 30. Plus insert by author. Made with the forbearance, I hope, of the copyright holder, Million Years Foundation.)
On made the move out of Japan in 1959, when his father's firm had an engineering contract in Mexico. I don't know if the artist's father (I imagine him as the middle head in the third row of that last image) instigated the move, or whether On made his own mind up about it.
I can imagine that On's family wanted their brilliant and deep-feeling son to see life from a non-Japanese angle. I imagine they begged him to take advantage of the gift for languages that he enjoyed, a gift that rivalled the other intellectual gifts he'd been blessed with.
Imagine On's parents, back in Japan, wondering how their son was getting on in the Western world. They needn't have worried. On was kicking the ball out of the park and would go on doing so for the rest of his life.
But that last sentence needs justifying. And much of the rest of this website will attempt to do that.
AUG. 22, 2024. (Made it. Though I'll need to tidy up the piece at my leisure.)
