SPECIAL DAYS?
INTRO
Greg Allen is a blogger about art who puts intriguing and insightful things on his greg.org site on a daily basis. At least three times in the last year or so he's written about On Kawara and provided links, including to pages on this site. One such post was four days ago, 'On Kawara Used A Template', and in reading it, I was linked back to a piece he wrote in September 2024. It ends with the following question:
'I’m sure everyone shopping for a Date Painting quietly gravitates to a date that means something to them. But this is the opposite. Are König’s birthday and the moon landing the only two events explicitly commemorated by Date Paintings?'
A question worth answering today, July 7, 2025. Why today in particular? No reason. It's simply prompted by the July 3 post by Greg Allen. Let's just clarify what Allen means by 'König's birthday' and 'the moon landings'. The moon landings were the three paintings made on July 16, July 20 and July 21, 1969. Kawara had told his friends that he was making special preparations to make unusually large Dates on these days. And so he did, three size 'H' canvases. Today they are shown together as a triptych at Glenstone Museum, Maryland. As for König's birthday, that refers to the painting that Kasper König owned at his death in 2024 which (it says in Van Ham's auction notes) was given to him by the artist on his 60th birthday on November 21, 2003. 
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation
The back of the canvas is signed by On Kawara. He hasn't gone so far as to write that the painting was a birthday gift to his old friend, though I feel certain it was. 
Reproduced with the forbearance, I hope, of the copyright holder, Van Ham's,
So on what other occasions was On Kawara painting to commemorate something other than the day itself? Which is to acknowledge that usually On Kawara was painting the day for its own sake. He was celebrating being alive for a particular 24-hour period; and he was registering that fact by painting the date within that same 24-hour period.
Any exceptions other than Kasper's 60th and Apollo 11? Yes, I think so. Let's start from the beginning…
1966-1972: THE SUBTITLE YEARS
The subtitle for APR. 21, 1966 is 'An artificial heart by Dr. DeBakey for Hiroko's birthday.'
Could April 21 be Hiroko Hiraoka's birthday? Well, according to this semi-official document it is: 
In other words, APR.21,1966 was 'for Hiroko's birthday'. The 'An artificial heart by Dr. DeBakey' was an ironic embellishment. I think it is code for 'A date painting by On Kawara'. In other words, the subtitle can be translated as 'A date painting by On Kawara for Hiroko's birthday.' How fabulous is that?
There were also four Dates painted to commemorate the pre-Apollo space flights Gemini 9, 10, 11 and 12. So I think we can say that JUNE 3, 1966, JULY 18, 1966, SEPT.12, 1966 and NOV. 11, 1966, fall into the Apollo 11 category. Especially the July date which was the largest Date that On Kawara had yet painted, at size 'F'. He also took a photo of this Date, revealing that it had pride of place in his inner sanctum at his 405 East 13th Street studio.
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation
But so far all I've done is consolidate the birthday and space mission commemoration themes. Is there anything else? Well, there might be. The subtitle to December 14, 1966, is 'This evening I was in T. Okamoto's studio, 333 East 95th Street, N.Y.C.'
By December 1966, one wall of On Kawara's inner sanctum was packed with size 'B' paintings from late in the year. But as you can see from this next image, there is no sign of DEC. 14, 1966. 
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation
The above photo shows seven size 'B' paintings made in December of 1966, starting with December 9. On Kawara's journal shows that he painted eight size 'B' paintings in the time period December 9 to December 31. So the only one missing is December 14. I would surmise that the painting had been given to someone, presumably T. Okamoto.
The AI branch of Google tells us: 'Taro Okamoto was a Japanese artist known for his avant-garde paintings, public sculptures, and murals, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s. He is recognized for his innovative ideas that reconstructed Japanese artistic circles and his exploration of traditional Japanese culture.' He was born in 1911, and so was 22 years older than On Kawara. Would Kawara have given him a sample of his work as a mark of respect? As a piece of networking? It seems highly possible. But it's the phrasing of the subtitle that is the important thing. Kawara could equally have done his usual thing of taking a line or two from a New York newspaper of the same day, giving emphasis to his usual process, and given it to his fellow artist. But he didn't.
Taro Okamoto died in 1996. His own works were donated to Kawasaki city so I may get round to investigating the possibility that DEC.14, 1966 is in the museum dedicated to Okamoto there.
Moving on, the subtitle for June 10, 1967, reads: 'Tonight Bob and Sally Manness and I saw Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren in 'A Countess from Hong Kong' at Loew's Sheridan Theatre in New York.'
Now this painting was given to Bob and Sally, signed and dated December 30, 1967. It was sold at Bonham's in London in 2014, and at the sale a photo of the back of the painting was made available. As you can see, this time the signature is in Japanese: 
Reproduced with the forbearance, I hope, of the copyright holder, Bonham's,
I think that both the choosing of the subtitle in June and the giving of the painting in December, suggest that on this occasion something other than the everydayness of the day was being emphasised. Friendship.
Later in the year, on November 18, 1967, the same kind of unusual subtitle was given: 'Joseph, Christine, Hiroko and I tonight saw 'Bonnie and Clyde' at the Charles Theatre on Ave. 8 near 12th Street in New York City.'
'Joseph' and 'Christine' refers to Joseph Kosuth and Christine Kozlov. Both were important conceptual artists, and they were a couple at this time. Both were engaged in intense conversations with On and Hiroko about contemporary art, and Hiroko referred to this in a letter to Kasper König written in 1969. On Kawara sent both of them several 'I GOT UP' cards when he was in Mexico in 1968. And Kosuth and Kozlov met up with On and Hiroko in Mexico City for a total of ten days (they are on that number of 'I MET' lists in August and September, 1968). It seems quite possible that Kawara would have given them Nov. 18, 1967. I would almost be surprised if he didn't. But which of them would have hung the Date in their apartment? The postcards suggest they had different addresses.
Maybe that's why the subtile of JAN.1, 1968 is 'I played Monopoly with Joseph, Christine and Hiroko this afternoon. We ate a lot of spaghetti.' Now both Kosuth and Kozlov could have a Date Painting hanging in their personal space!
Moving on, all the time On Kawara was in Mexico or South America, the subtitles were in Spanish or Portuguese, reflecting what was being reported in the newspapers of whatever city he was in. That is, except September 22, 1968. That day the subtitle reads 'I GOT UP AT 10.36 A.M.' In other words, usually a Date Painting reflected the fact that On Kawara spent the day consciously being alive, while the subtitle informs us what was going on in the troubled world. But on this occasion On Kawara just doubled down on himself doing his thing.
In December 1968, three of the days have subtitles in Spanish devoted to Apollo 8, that's 21 DIC. 68, 24 DIC. 68 and 27 DIC. 68, all made in Buenos Aires. While in March, a single Date painting commemorates Apollo 9, made in Caracas, 8 MAR. 69.
Back in New York, the tributes to the Apollo missions continued. Apollo 10 inspired: MAY 18, 1969, MAY 21, 1969, MAY 22, 1969 and MAY 24, 1969. All size 'B'. Then came the very special effort made for Apollo 11 and the first moon landing, which was this essay's starting point. That is, the three giant July paintings marking the mission that culminated in man's first walk on the moon: JULY 16, JULY 20 and JULY 21, 1969. Then a huge effort was made in November 1969 on behalf of Apollo 12. NOV. 13, 1969, NOV, 14, 1969 and three Dates painted on NOV. 19, 1969, that being the day of the second moon walk. This was the first time that the artist had made three Date paintings in the same day. One was a size 'B' and the other two were size 'C'. Doing them the same size would have made his task easier, but that's not what On Kawara was about.
Shall I finish off the Apollo missions at this point? Yes, why not? Apollo 13 was commemorated by two Date Paintings in April of 1970, no other dates being painted that month. Nothing was made of Apollo 14. Perhaps because the artist had just returned from a two-month visit to Japan, where the very few dates he'd painted had been given subtitles in Esperanto. I suspect it was a difficult time for On Kawara being back in his homeland, seeing his parents for the first time in many years, coming to terms with the shocking suicide of Yukio Mishima, and that he was somewhat knocked out of his stride. But Apollo 15 was commemorated in August of 1971 with four Date Paintings, two made on August 1, then one each on August 6 and 7. Finally, in April 1972, three subtitles focus on Apollo 16. APR. 16, 1972, APR. 18, 1972 and APR. 21, 1972. In subsequent years, On may have carried on this pattern of giving special attention to the space missions, but he'd stopped giving the paintings subtitles by then (apart from the day of the week), so one can't be sure.
Having skipped ahead, let me point out another birthday, in fact the date of the actual birth of Hiroko König in 1972. Kasper König had become a father and he was giving his first child the name of his good friend Hiroko. On Kawara's subtlite for MAY 5, 1972 is simply: 'Hiroko König'. I believe that painting still belongs to Coco, as she was soon to be known.
Birthday Date Paintings:
Hiroko Hiraoka: AP. 21, 1966. Age 29
Hiroko König: MAY 5, 1972. Newborn
Kasper König: 21 NOV. 2003. Age 60.
Back to 1969. And a painting that today's exercise has drawn to my attention. The subtitle for AUG. 31 1969 is as follows. (It's too long to copy out. This image is taken from On Kawara's Journal.)
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation
This is referring to a piece of work Kawara was doing at the time, named Code. This same list of numbers is the work's title:
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation
What the artist had done was use a double page spread from July's MAD Magazine as a cypher. We know this thanks to the joint enterprise of Anders Delbom, Tommy Wrede and myself in 2024.
Reproduced with the forbearance, I hope, of the copyright holder, MAD Magazine.
You can see that the above 'PROTEST newspaper story' consists of 12 paragraphs. On Kawara used it to code the alphabet as follows:
A = 5
B = 07
C = 08
D = 3
E = 0
F = 06
G = 01
H = 04
I = 1
J = 10
K = 09
L = 4
M = 03
N = 9
O = 2
P = 05
Q = 20
R = 8
S = 6
T = 7
U = 50
V = 00
W = 60
X = 30
Y = 02
Z = 40
In that way he produced the 12 paragraphs of Code, which is the work itself:
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation
That's the title (the written out number starting eight quintillion) on the left-hand page of six pages, and the 12 paragraphs of written out numbers over the rest of the double-page from On Kawara: SILENCE. The last paragraph continues from the foot of the fifth page of the work to the top of the sixth and last.
And you can use the above key to prove the title. Let me demonstrate. First reduce the title in words to the title in numbers. If you look at the 'Eight quintillion…' of the subtitle, or of the title to Code, you see that it is actually two numbers. A fraction being the first: 0.8802057201850504108. (It may start 'eight quintillion' but if you stick with it, it ends in a number of ten quintillionths). And a gigantic whole number being the second: 205,006,712,995,180.
Using the alphabet key, we get:
0.8 8 02 05 7 2 01 8 5 05 04 1 08
C R Y P T O G R A P H I C
And:
20 50 0 6 7 1 2 9 9 5 1 8 0
Q U E S T I O N N A I R E
Cryptography is the process of hiding or coding information so that only the person a message was intended for can read it. Code is really a private communication from On Kawara to himself. The same private communication that is the subtitle for AUG. 31, 1969.
I wonder why Kawara chose to memorialise his Code on that day. Perhaps that's when he had the idea of using the spread in MAD Magazine the way he did. Or maybe it's the day he completed the numerical piece in draft form. Or the day he neatly and precisely typed it onto six sheets of paper. The fact that he didn't do another Date Painting until SEPT. 18, 1969 suggests to me he still had work to do on his Code.
AUG. 31, 1969. Imagine owning that particular Date Painting. The one that commemorates On Kawara's complexity and singularity of thought. I wonder who does own it or whether it's reproduced anywhere. Maybe that's the single Date Painting that Kawara gifted to Nobu Fukui who had to give it up when he got divorced. Which means it went back to Japan and was sold through a dealer there. Somebody, somewhere doesn't know what they've got.
1973-2014: THE POST-SUBTITLE YEARS
I want to get this text finished and posted online today, JULY 7, 2025. So I'm going to confine myself to three examples of where I think we can safely say On Kawara was commemorating something other than his own existence throughout a 24-hour period on planet earth, even though there are no subtitles to help with the deduction.
ONE
In 1990, Kawara was invited to Barcelona to take part in an exhibition called 'Time Span'. From January 19 to February 25, 1990, the exhibition which also included work by Jenny Holzer, Bruce Nauman and Lawrence Weiner, was held at Sala D'Expositions de la Fundacio Caixa de Pensions.
On Kawara's contribution was five Dates painted just before the show opened, painted in Barcelona: 9 GEN.1990, 10 GEN. 1990, 11 GEN. 1990, 12 GEN. 1990 and 13 GEN. 1990. 
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation
This was a very political piece. Barcelona being the capital of Catalonia as well as a city in Spain. Catalan is a separate language, and the Catalans wanted and still want their own country. Kawara seems to have supported this goal as the dates expressed in Spanish would have been different. The word for January in Catalan is 'Gener' and the word for January in Spanish is 'Enero'. What Kawara chose to say about the date while in Barcelona was not the Spanish: 9 ENE. 90, 10 ENE. 90, 11 ENE. 90, 12 ENE. 90, and 13 ENE. 90, but the Catalan:
Reproduced from the book Time Span.
The accompanying cardboard boxes included an extract from a newspaper from Barcelona. For example:
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation
Spanish or Catalan? The headline translates from Catalan to English as 'Tensions on the second day of the taxi strike.'
And I think that seeing these deadpan dates on the wall of the gallery must have given the good folk of the sometime republic of Catalonia quite a thrill. Because it is so obvious what is going on. Kawara is highlighting politics in a more judgemental way than usual. Language is important. Even when you're simply expressing the date.
TWO
In 1993, On Kawara was fulfilling a commission to paint a series of Dates for the Chateau d'Oiron in France. 
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation
He must have decided to produce one a month in the same distinctive colour and size 'A', because that's what he did. There was an opening at the chateau in the summer of 1993, and the first six of a dozen paintings would have been part of that instal. On Kawara may have seen it (though he didn't attend his openings) as the early June painting was made at the chateau. In which case he would have seen this:
Reproduced with the forbearance, I hope, of the copyright holder, Chateau d'Oiron.
That's the January to May Date Paintings in situ. It's not possible to do justice to the installation of all 12 monthly paintings in a single photo, but perhaps this diagram gets close to it:
The two paintings in the left column were made in Japan, though months apart. The five paintings in the middle column were made at Kawara's home in New York, though again separated by months and by international flights that took him all around the world. And the five in the right column were made in Europe, three in French places and two in German ones.
An awful lot of flying over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans went into this particular year in the life of On Kawara. And I think he would have been aware that this would be so when he began the commission. Every time he selected this bright blue he knew he was commemorating a particular place, Chateau d'Oiron. And that by the end of the year he would have a rendering of time and space travel that would have the capacity to move anyone who was lucky enough to see it, whether in the middle of an exquisite room in a French palace, or in their mind's eye.
THREE
In 1995 On Kawara was invited to present a show in Cologne's Kunstverein by its director, Udo Kittelmann, the show running from 26th of August to 8th of October. At all times the show consisted of 24 Date Paintings, but as the show went on, a brand new Date would be added and at the same time the oldest Date would be taken away.
At the beginning of the show, this was the set of 24 paintings:
Reproduced from the book On Kawara: Appearance-Disppearance
That's how the show stayed until September 3, on which occasion 3.SEPT.1995, freshly made in Cologne, was added, and 24. MARZ.1976, painted in Berlin, was taken away. 
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation
Then the next day, 4.SEPT. 1995, the latest Cologne production, was added, and 10.APRIL, 1976, again made in Berlin, was taken away. 
Reproduced from the book On Kawara: Appearance-Disppearance
It's as site-specific an installation and as near a performance as On Kawara ever did. Though I don't suppose it would be himself, in person, who was adding and subtracting the paintings from the walls. I imagine that Kawara would have confined himself to painting the new Dates in his room, as he was used to doing. What he wasn't used to doing was immediately making use of a Date Painting other than by storing it away, to be exhibited or sold later.
By the time the show closed, Kawara had not added a new painting for a few days and the show consisted of the following set of paintings:
Reproduced from the book On Kawara: Appearance-Disppearance
This means that for a little more than a month, On would have been aware not only of painting his Dates within the stipulated times, and sourcing the local newspapers, but of participating in the evolving show. Why always 24 Dates? Perhaps because there are 24 hours in a day and you can't pack any more hours into a day, try as you might.
Kawara went to Iceland in late August of 1995, but the Dates he did there (for instance 26 ÁG,1995) did not become part of the show. That may have been because all 24 of the Dates had to have been painted in Germany.
Isn't that last thing a bit arbitrary and nationalistic? The show was curated by Udo Kittelmann, so maybe On simply agreed to have his work used in this way.
OUTRO
On reflection, as we come towards the end of my allotted time for this essay, I'm not sure how convincing these post-subtitle examples of commemoration are. It's easier to get my head round the subtitled examples. The birthdays of loved ones, meetings with friends or fellow artists (I will keep my eyes open for further examples), the attempts of man to explore space, and, on a single occasion, the artist's own complex, coded idea: that's what On Kawara's Date Paintings unambiguously celebrated when they weren't 'just' celebrating one man's experience of the day itself.
No time to make a Date Painting, obviously. But with the font I've been gifted by Keith Bates, I can do this in a jiffy:
Postscript, but still July 7, 2025.
I've just looked through Candida Höfer's book of photographs of On Kawara Date Paintings in private collections, circa 2006. It casts light on a few of the above observations.
1) The book contains three 1993 Dates and two of them are in Chateau d'Oiron blue. So maybe Kawara was keeping his options open as to what Dates exactly would be part of the chateau's installation.
2) The DEC. 14. 1966 painting is photographed in the collection of M. Ota in Japan. So I would still be hypothesising it was given to T. Okamoto on the day of its execution.
3) APR.5, 1966. This is photographed in the collection of Suzanne and Selman Selvi in Geneva. The subtitle is 'Tono, Arakawa and Johns are now waiting for me in Tono's apartment.' Which makes me think that Kawara was in a hurry to finish the Date which he took along to this meeting of artists that he respected, and perhaps gave it to Tono who was hosting the party, or to either the famous Arakawa or Jasper Johns.
4) Another 1966 painting. NOV. 3, 1966. This time the subtitle is "Not With My Wife, You Don't." This was photographed in the Cologne apartment of Kasper König in 2006. In other words, nearly three years after he received the 21.NOV. 2003 Date Painting in celebration of his 60th birthday. I don't think Kasper knew On as early as November 1966, I think it was spring of 1967 that they met. But maybe König came across the subtitle and loved it, especially in the context of Kasper, Barbara (his partner at the time), On and Hiroko getting on so well. Which begs the question of what Kawara was commemorating on this occasion, if anything other than the day lived and a line noticed in a newspaper. When On Kawara went to Mexico in 1968, the first postcards he sent, progenitors of the 'I GOT UP' postcards, were addressed to 'Mr and Mrs 1968', being Kasper and Barbara. 
Postscript, but no longer July 7, 2025.
There is one more (apart from the numbers code) reference to an OK work, that’s the 1965 painting: 'LAT, 31 25 N LONG. 8 41 E' which I should mention. As we know, Kawara was very keen on that painting, including it in many of his books til the end of his life. Its subtitle is the subtitle to 'SEPT.4, 1966'. Given that LAT./LONG. was painted in 1965 and given/sold by Joseph Kosuth to an Eindhoven gallery in 1980, one wonders what went on to impress the painting on On’s mind on September 4, 1966. It was on OCT.12, 1967 when the subtitle was ‘Dan Graham brought Joseph Kosuth to my apartment this afternoon.’ So it looks as if Kosuth did not know On Kawara until then. But Kawara was regularly visited in his studio by artists and one of those may have expressed an interest in it.
Having scrutinised the Candida Höfer book (On Kawara: Date Paintings in Private Collections) I can say that there are seven 1966 Dates shown in the book (of 241 painted). Only two have newspaper politics/space exploration/natural disasters as subtitles. Strange since there are about 180 of those made in the year. The other five are more personal, philosophical or mention visits to studios. What I conclude from this is that the only Dates from 1966 that are in collections are ones that OK gave away at the time. I know that Kawara and Kasper König decided they wouldn’t sell any Dates for five years, but I don’t think those early Dates have ever been sold. Maybe only the odd very rare, determined collector has bought any. When there was a 1966 show in Europe in 2015, there were 50 Dates shown. None of the seven had been photographed by Candida Höfer. I expect all 50 were owned by OMYF. Though that is said off the top of my head. One Million Years Foundation may have more than a thousand Date Paintings in storage. Though that is another unresearched estimate.
