GIANT ON: 1982
Four years after the 1978 size 'H' Dates, On Kawara made two more. Again these were an October and a November date. This is how they were installed at the 2008 Dallas show, facing each other along the same corridor that OCT. 31, 1978 and NOV. 13, 1978 faced each other. Please ignore the 'I READ' volumes in the foreground.
Reproduced from the website of Dallas Museum of Art.
Let's update the Dallas diagram:
I've updated this diagram in several ways. First, I've acknowledged that the top left room was filled with the volumes that made up Million Years Past and Million Years Future. The presence of the 'million years' work always adds poignancy to individual Date Paintings. How many days in a million years? That's right, a near-infinite number, almost every one of which is lost to any one of us.
Second, I've indicated that the bottom right gallery was filled with 'I WENT' and 'I MET' from 1968 to 1979. That's more or less the exact gap between the aforementioned million years of the past and million Years of the future. Very much On Kawara's present, as at the time he was in full Date Painting flow. Very much my present (now past) as well. And perhaps yours, dear reader.
But primarily what the diagram suggests is that by this time, 1982, the artist had in mind that he would make a size 'H' Date of each of Monday to Sunday. After all, since he had stopped giving titles derived from his day's newspaper-reading to his Dates, the titles had been simply the day of the week that they had been made. And so we get 'Wednesday' and 'Thursday' to add to 'Monday' and 'Tuesday'.
While this may have been a factor, I suspect the most important one was the destruction of 29 OCT. 1978. Assuming that it was destroyed before autumn of 1982 (which I think I can safely assume, as Jonathan Watkins told me in an email that it was badly damaged and destroyed in 1979), this may have motivated On Kawara to repeat his work on the clock-falling-back-by-an-hour-at-the-end-of-October theme.
I'm a little surprised he didn't make OCT. 31, 1982, since that is the day the clocks went back in 1982. But he had done an OCT. 31, 1978, which still existed, and perhaps he didn't want to repeat the October 31 part of the Date as that would draw undue attention to itself. Besides, if he made a Date Painting prior to the clocks going back, and paired it with one in November, that would be a subtle tribute to the clocks going back motif involving no repetition.
So first he painted this:
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
Here is the corresponding 'I READ':
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
Which tells us little of significance as to why On Kawara painted this Date at size 'H', however interesting a fact the huge population of China is.
Bear in mind too that by this time he was no longer producing 'I GOT UP', 'I WENT', or 'I MET' . So we don't have much to go on.
And then, nearly three weeks from the last H-Day, he made this:
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
Is three weeks not too long a gap? Well, he only made one other Date in the meantime, and that was a small one on November 16, but the gap does seem pronounced.
The 'I READ' is as follows: 
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
Again there is nothing there that suggests a reason for painting a huge Date. All I can think of is that Kawara was stuck trying to give due weight to to that awesome and preposterous thing, the clocks going back in the autumn.
Both the paintings are reproduced in Candida Hofer's book, On Kawara, subtitled 'Date Paintings in Private Collections'. First the one owned by Leonard and Louise Riggio. They are the couple who lent the painting to the Dallas Art Museum for the superb 2008 show there.
Reproduced with the forbearance, I hope, of Candida Hofer.
Dear reader, please control yourself from imagining walking along the boardroom table, glass in hand, listening to 'Golden Years'.
Also the one owned by the Lafrenz Collection in Hamburg:
Reproduced with the forbearance, I hope, of Candida Hofer.
Dear reader, please control yourself from kneeling on the carpet, searching through the CDs for Bowie's The Ghouster, and playing the track 'Fascination'.
A cynical reader will be wishing that I had left this page blank. And I am open to other people's analysis of the situation. So rest assured this page will change if it has to. For the moment, let me update the Dallas diagram:
Come next March, I may make a size 'H' Date of the clocks going forward, which would be MAR.29, 2026. Do I say that to distract myself from the pain of pushing this forward here and now? Perhaps this latest diagram is closer to what I want to say right now: 
It's worth spending a little time with this diagram. I believe it shimmers with a kind of beauty. On Kawara was holding an awful lot of information and connections in his head as he went about his sublime work.
I think OCT. 29, 1978 was a significant creation. It was the first large Date that On Kawara had made since the Apollo Dates of nine years before. Essentially, it was a special celebration of the everydayness of an ordinary day. Though surely it was no accident that this was a 25-hour day!
It links in my mind to the Date Painting that Kawara made in 1966 and later deliberately destroyed, presumably because he spent more than the 24 hours in question on it. 
Those are size 'B' Dates on the wall behind SEPT. 20, 1966. And size 'D' Dates on the floor. This was an enormous canvas, bigger than size 'H'. I suppose size 'H' was about as large as On Kawara could manage in a single day. He had leant that the hard way.
It is important to note that SEPT. 20, 1966, does not exist in On Kawara's Date Painting records. It's not in his Journal, nor marked on the 100-Year-Calendar. Whereas OCT.29, 1978, is in the Journal and marked on the 100-Year-Calendar, because the fact of its destruction did not impact on its continued existence as far as the artist was concerned.
I'm excited to be moving onto the next essay in this section. Where I am more sure of On Kawara's motivation for supersizing his practice.
