EARLY ON (2)
On Kawara left Japan at the age of 26. He stayed in Mexico City, New York and Paris and soaked up these countries very different ways of being. He learned to be fluent in Spanish, English and French. He must have set aside much time to do so, as these languages are so very different from his first language, Japanese.
Just to reiterate. On Kawara's nihilist work came to an end in Tokyo. He doesn't seem to have made much artwork from 1957 to 1959. In 1959 he took advantage of his father's firm having an engineering contract in Mexico to leave Japan, something that was not easy to do back then.
I'm getting this little biographical information from the essay (also in German and French) that Roland Waspe wrote for On Kawara 1964: Paris - New York. This book, published in Switzerland in 1997, provides illustrations of the 196 drawings that On Kawara chose to preserve from the 1964 sketchbooks he kept in New York and Paris. Obviously that book is at the centre of the 1964 essay which I'm getting ready to write. But first this attempt at an overview…
On Kawara's father's contract in Mexico only lasted two months, but On stayed in Mexico for four years, 1959 to 1962. He travelled around the country and he learned Spanish. He studied art in Mexico City and apparently the work was an extension of what he'd been doing in Tokyo. (Which comes close to contradicting what I say at the beginning of the above paragraph two, but let it stand.)
Apparently, he was very surprised by Mexico. An example that Roland Waspe gives concerns transport. In Japan, the trains run like clockwork. In Mexico, On found himself waiting at a station wondering why on earth the train was two hours late, something he could hardly get his head around. It was explained to him by a local that the train had been due the previous day and was in fact twenty-six hours late.
The experience of Mexico would not really find its way into On Kawara's work until 1968, when he returned to the country for six months. But 1968 was one of his most creative years, and the impact that Mexico had on his understanding of the passing of time was clearly crucial. Just wait for the 1968 essay and you'll see what I mean.
Here is a quote from the aforementioned Roland Waspe essay: 'In 1962 On Kawara went on a trip [from Mexico City] that took him to Paris via New York. A planned stay of two weeks turned into one year.' I think this means that On Kawara stayed in New York for a year, before travelling to Paris in the autumn of 1963 where he stayed for another year.
Apparently, On was very surprised by New York also. Time was perceived more like it had been in Tokyo, but the culture was different. 'He was fascinated by the pulsing life in Manhattan, from the underground films that he went to see on Mondays after midnight and from the Happenings within the sphere of Pop Art."
During this first stay in New York, On Kawara made about a hundred drawings. 'For the move to Paris, the ideas that he had set down on paper were an unnecessary encumbrance and they did not survive his departure.'
This is the one extant work of On Kawara's that I've come across that is dated 1963:
This has been done with the help of purchased plastic letters. It deals with one of the great philosophical questions: why is there something rather than nothing? We know there is 'something' not least because of the very question we have just asked ourselves. But why is there anything at all? Wouldn't it make so much more sense (in a Godless universe) if there was nothing at all? In other words, no universe at all. Nothing exists and nothing ever has existed…
But there is 'something' rather than 'nothing', which implies that there is 'everything' too. Clearly a single lifetime is insufficient to grasp 'everything'. But one could make a start.
If the Letraset had been available to On Kawara while living in Japan, he might have spelled out the word 'CATASTROPHE'. Or even 'NOTHING', meaning nothing good. At peace with himself in the Western world, he was making a new start.
