2004
INTRO
Four years ago I was told an anecdote concerning On Kawara that brings, I now realise, On Kawara's 2004 to life in a novel way. I hope, dear reader, you will come to understand 2004 as the year of On Kawara laughing aloud at his own mistake as he lay on his hotel room bed in Bangkok with a half-finished Date Painting resting on a table nearby. You need to hang on until the essay reaches September for that story to get underway.
ONE
In an earlier essay, I set out the 42 Date Paintings of 2004 as a list. In what follows I have presented the list so that the monthly pattern - and the movements of the artist - becomes more obvious. You will have to forgive that I have only been able to collect photos of eleven of the Dates.
10 JAN. 2004; 17JAN.2004
6 FEB. 2004; 16 FEB. 2004
These four paintings were made in the Far East, probably in Japan, probably at his home in Tokyo, where On Kawara was still in the habit of spending the winter. Winters in New York were for much younger people than the 70-year-old Kawaras, On and Hiroko.
MAR. 8, 2004; MAR. 21, 2004; APR.16,2004; APR. 19, 2004; APR. 21 2004; APR. 27, 2004; MAY 9, 2004
The above Dates were painted at the Kawaras' primary home in New York. But in the absence of 'I GOT UP', 'I WENT' and 'I MET' I can't say anything more, not with On Kawara being as protective of his own privacy as he was. I haven't even got a reproduction to show you of any of the Dates made from January to April. But I do have this repro of the early May Date. This is a Date Painting that plays a part in the aforementioned Bangkok story. But not until September.
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
The format of this next Date suggests it was painted in a French speaking country.
26 MAI. 2004
Possibly, but not necessarily, a city in France. It wasn't a new city to be painted in, or that city would be most likely to have an entry in Date Painting(s) in New York and 136 Other Cities. In all probability, it was painted in Paris, where the Kawaras had owned a flat since 1993. That's three homes in four paragraphs. The Date Painter had done very well for himself and his loved ones.
JUNE 10,2004; JUNE 14, 2004; JUNE 16, 2004; JUNE 17, 2004; JUNE 30, 2004.
On Kawara was back in New York by June 10. That date was bought by Santiago Barberi Gonzales at some stage, and it was with SBG until it was sold in 2017 on the death of the Colombian-born handbag-designer. As you can see from this next illustration, the fashion maestro had an abundant art collection that was hung cheek-by-jowel in his apartment, if I can use such an anthropomorphic expression for such largely non-figurative art.
Reproduced with the forbearance, I hope, of the copyright holder.
SBG may even have carried the Date around in a handbag.
"In a handbag!" shouts Lady Bracknell.
I hope you will see why I have employed that quote before reaching the end of this essay.
The next image was reproduced for the purposes of the 2017 auction.
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
Would the above Date fit in a handbag?
Well, it's 10" x 13.5" so I daresay that SBG would have been able to produce something big enough made of alligator hide.
Where were we? Oh yes, New York:
JULY 3, 2004 ; JULY 5, 2004; JULY 7, 2004; JULY 9, 2004; JULY 11, 2004; JULY 14, 2004; JULY 16, 2004; JULY 27, 2004.
I have a reproduction of one of these eight July Dates. It crops up in the book On Kawara: Silence, and is size D. 
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
At 18" x 24.5" this painting is too large to fit in a handbag, though you might fit it into a suitcase. Where is it now? It could be in a collection anywhere in America or Europe or the Far East.
On Kawara was still inhabiting his loft at 140 Greene Street in New York. What was going on in the art world? There was concern that year over 'speculative demand' and the rapid rise of young 'hot' artists, with collectors increasingly 'flipping' works for profit, a trend industry professionals felt threatened the longevity of artists' careers. I don't think On Kawara had anything to worry about. He was as blue chip an artist as it was possible to be.
AUG. 22, 2004; AUG. 25, 2004
Summer in the Big Apple. I've a feeling it was Angela Westwater that was representing On Kawara in New York. So I expect it was she who sold the next two Dates.
SEPT. 1, 2004; SEPT. 4, 2004
Reproduced with the forbearance, I hope, of Candida Hofer.
The first two Dates painted in September were photographed - in a Private Collection located in New York - by Candida Hofer on the 21st of the same month The above photo is of SEPT. 1, 2004.
It doesn't say so, but I think both Dates were part of the same collection. Here is SEPT. 4, 2004, hung above a photocopier in someone's office.
Reproduced with the forbearance, I hope, of Candida Hofer.
It could almost be On Kawara's office. In other words - as I think happened the next year with the picturing of a Date in May 2005 in a Parisian flat, a few days after it was painted - the desk pictured could almost be the desk at which On Kawara painted his Dates at 140 Greene Street. But I don't think it is.
Strange though, that these two September Dates went from On Kawara's studio to the walls of a collector in such a short length of time. In earlier decades, the artist had liked to hang onto each Date Painting at least until the next calendar year.
SEPT.16,2004 (Fort Worth, USA) 
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
What was On Kawara doing in Texas? He may have been meeting with the curator at Dallas Museum of Art. On Kawara had suggested a most ambitious exhibition of his own work, which would be shown there in 2008, and the foreword of the Dallas Museum book, On Kawara: 10 Tableaux and 16,952 Pages, suggests the exhibition took a lot of organising.
Anyway, now I can tell you the anecdote, which was told to me by Jonathan Watkins, then the director of Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, England, in 2022, not long after I had begun this project. I need to do it justice, so will take a break at this point.
TWO
Watkins had agreed to show a set of On Kawara Date Paintings, all made on Sundays, one from each year of 1966 to 2002, at Birmingham's Ikon Gallery. The exhibition (which, I now realise, has similarities to the permanent collections at Dia, Frankfurt and Glenstone, though none of these collections confine themselves to a single day of the week) ran from 20 NOV 2002 to 26 JAN 2003.
The show was called 'Consciousness, Meditation, Watcher on the Hills', which was the artist's title. After Birmingham, it went clockwise around the world over the next few years and a new Date Painting was added whenever the date allowed for such a thing. By the time the show was back in Birmingham as 'Eternal Return' in 2006, a single Date Painting had been added from each of the years 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.
After Birmingham, the exhibition was shown at Dijon in France (February to April 2003), then Geneva in Switzerland (May to June 2003), and thereafter the show opened in Kleve, Germany (October 12 to January 11, 2004), at which point the Date Painting made on SEPT. 14 , 2003 was added. It was affixed to the wall on November 5, 2003.
Reproduced with the forbearance, I hope, of the copyright holder, Thorsten Lindekamp.
The headline to the article that goes with the above photo, reads: 'From Hand Luggage to the Wall'. In the article itself, Guido de Werd, museum director at Kleve, tells us that the absence of a 2003 date was remarked by himself and early visitors to the exhibition, and, once he was told about this, On Kawara travelled from New York to Dusseldorf with a 2003 Sunday Date Painting in his hand luggage. That was on October 27, 2003, so it took a few days for the Date Painting to actually make it from hand luggage to the wall. However, as it is 2004 this essay deals with, I will leave that there for now.
'Consciousness, Meditation, Watcher on the Hills' then travelled to Braunschweig, also in Germany, where it could be seen from March 6 to April 25. Theoretically, there could have been a Sunday Date from 2004 included in the Braunschweig leg, but the first Date Painting made on a Sunday in 2004 wasn't done until March 21, and in the end no 2004 Date was added. There would then be a gap of several months before the next leg of the tour, Bangkok. There were several Sunday Date paintings made in this period, and one was indeed selected for Bangkok.
On Kawara's second Date Painting made on a Sunday in 2004 was MAY 9 and that is the Date that appeared in the Bangkok leg of the show. But what happened wasn't quite as straightforward as that makes it sound. Jonathan Watkins was giving a talk just after the opening of the Bangkok show (September 22, 2004) and so he was entrusted to transport the 2004 Date.
Watkins flew from Birmingham to Cologne in Germany and went to a hotel where he was handed the Date Painting by Kawara. The two, artist and curator, were friends by this time, and professional ties meant that they met on occasion in most years from 1997 onwards. Watkins then got on the plane and began to finalise the talk he would give in Bangkok. He had decided to include a performative aspect as he would have had the new Date Painting in his possession as he stood before the Bangkok audience, and so he consulted his diary to see what he had been doing on the day that On had been Date Painting. He saw that he had been at a meeting with the BBC. But surely that wasn't something that would be scheduled for a Sunday. When he checked with a calendar, he confirmed that the Date Painting that he was carrying to Bangkok was not a Sunday Date Painting.
Watkins had to change planes en route to Bangkok (I presume in Dubai, as I did earlier this year) and from there he phoned the artist to inform him of the problem. He was told that the Date Painting he had in his possession would have to be returned, and that a Sunday Date would be sent from New York in its place. Later, Jonathan told me, On Kawara would express great amusement on recounting this story of how the supposedly meticulous artist had made a schoolboy error.
Perhaps the value of the story is how it punctures the picture On Kawara would have us retain of his movements in 2004. The Date Paintings suggest he began the year in Japan, then spent spring in New York, except for a few weeks (at most) when he was in a French speaking country. Then back to New York for a long summer before (as we'll see) flying to France to do a few Dates, before flying to the Far East to end the year.
What was he doing in a hotel in Cologne towards the end of September? Well, Kasper Konig had been living in Cologne for some time, and 'I GOT UP', 'I WENT' and 'I MET' (between the years 1968 and 1979) make it clear just how strong were the connections between the Kawara family and the Konigs. On and Hiroko had even looked after the Konig children for weeks on end when the busy Konig adults found themselves travelling out of town.
In other words, the Date Paintings only tell part of the story. On Kawara lived a private life over and above that. Or rather he lived a mysterious personal life under the Date Painting radar.
When Kasper Konig died in 2024, the auctioneers selling his private art collection made a video in his Cologne flat. The flat was crammed full of art and books, as you might expect.
You can make out three sets of Michele Didier's boxed editions of 'I GOT UP', 'I WENT' and 'I MET' at the bottom, right-hand side of the above image.
No doubt Kasper opened up the volumes of 'I MET' from time to time, and reminded himself of the rich history of his friendship with On Kawara.
The flat also contained two Date Paintings. One from the year of their first meeting:
And a Date Painting that On Kawara had made just a few months earlier to commemorate Kasper's 60th birthday. On Kawara was not in the habit of making a Date Painting to commemorate an individual's birthday. But he'd made an exception for his great friend, Kasper.
The photo alongside the NOV. 2003 Date shows Date Paintings being rescued from a fire in Frankfurt in 2019. In other words, the magnificent collection of On Kawara Dates from 1966 to 2000 that Kasper Konig did so much to ensure happened.
So, back in 2004, the display would have been different. But I have little doubt that the On Kawara Date Painting was somewhere on the wall, along with the Date Painting that emphasised the length and depth of their friendship
Let's go further, and imagine that On Kawara was dining with Kasper Konig when Jonathan Watkins phoned. So Kasper would have been the first to learn about the situation.
"My God, On. How could that have happened?"
"I don't know. I remember checking which days had been painted on a Sunday this year. One in March, one in May, one in July and one in September. And I remember selecting the May one for the Consciousness show. I put it aside, on top of my desk, and later it was made into a package that would fit in my hand luggage for my flight to Germany."
"Someone may have put it away and then realised that the Date had been put out for a reason. And in putting the date back on your desk, they may have put their hands on the wrong date in May."
"Possibly. In any case, I should have checked the package as it was in my travelling bag. But I didn't. That was very bad."
"Thank goodness Watkins did check. Can you imagine the consternation that would have taken place, sooner or later, if the mistake had not been spotted?"
"Hmmm. I don't think anyone would have noticed. Or if anyone had, they would have assumed that there was a deep reason for having a Wednesday at the end of a long line of Sundays."
And they both laughed. Indeed, On Kawara had difficulty stopping laughing for much of the rest of the evening.
THREE
At the end of September, On Kawara was making Date Paintings in France. First Lourdes, in south west France; then Corsica, a French territory in the Mediterranean between France and Italy; then Limoges, in west-central France.
Because these were new sites of Date Paintings they are reproduced in Date Painting(s) in New York and 1366 Other Cities.
29 SEPT. 2004 (possibly Lourdes, France); 2 OCT. 2004 (probably Lourdes); 3 OCT. 2004 (definitely Lourdes). 
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
The above newspaper cutting is concerned with Turkey's application to join the European Union. Jacques Chirac (pictured) was in favour of it, but other prominent politicians weren't.
What about On Kawara with his international traveller's perspective? Kawara kept his own counsel. For was he not a watcher on the hills?
16OCT.2004 (probably Bastia, Corsica); 17OCT.2004 (Bastia). 
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
The main article in the above clipping is about an opportunity to study the island's fungi.
By this time, On Kawara's 25-year old son was on the staff at Florida University and on the way to becoming a world expert on insects. An interest that was very much encouraged by his father while Akito was growing up. I know fungi and insects are different, but I think anything to do with the study of nature was right up On Kawara's street. Watcher on the hills. Watcher of the hills.
22OCT.2004 (Limoges, France). 
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
The clipping features a photo of older people protesting about their loss of purchasing power. The headline reads 'The Elderly Feel Unwell'. Perhaps On Kawara felt himself to be both elderly and unwell. But that is guesswork.
It seems to me that these clippings have been thought about, perhaps more than usual.
8 NOV. 2004 (possibly Paris, France); 18 NOV. 2004 (possibly/probably Paris).
I don't know where On Kawara was when he painted these November Dates. But somewhere that was French-speaking, presumably Paris.
Let's just map the three new French Date Painting locations as a triangle. Limoges in the north, Lourdes the south west and Bastia, Corsica, in the Med.
And let's just add the triangle of French locations from 2000. 
Ah, good: Arles (yellow circle) still at the centre of On Kawara's French world. Vincent Van Gogh very much in both the 2000 and the 2004 triangles of Date Painting.
Some readers will be thinking that my linking of On Kawara to Van Gogh is tenuous. I've said before that Kawara was keen to stress how close his flat in Paris was to the flat where Vincent and Theo lived together for a year. And that On and Hiroko seemed to visit art galleries with splendid collections of Van Gogh paintings when touring the Great Lakes in 1975. Plus I have just remembered that the very last 'I READ' - files that the artist began in 1966 and had added to every time he made a Date Painting - was filed on 28 December, 1995. The last cutting in the final file concerned Jeanne Calment, the 120-year-old Arles resident who had known Vincent Van Gogh in her youth.
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
I know that doesn't prove anything. But On Kawara was a master coder, as well as so much else, and I suspect he was coding his close interest in Van Gogh.
Vincent Van Gogh and On Kawara. Twins separated at birth. By 80 years.
FOUR
I don't know if On Kawara returned to New York before heading off to the Far East for winter (he didn't make any New York Date Paintings at this time). He may have gone straight out East from Paris.
7 DEC. 2004 (presumably, Bangkok, Thailand); 10 DEC. 2004 (definitely Bangkok). 
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
Now why did he travel to Bangkok only after 'Consciousness, Meditation, Watcher on the Hills' had closed? Perhaps he thought it was something he owed to a city that had been enlightened enough to exhibit his Date Paintings. Perhaps he wanted to be able to include it in a subsequent work that would show the cities in which he'd date painted. Which would be the book, Date Painting(s) in New York and 136 Other Cities.
This is a variation on a pattern that is noticeable from the show Date Paintings in 89 Cities. That show opened in Rotterdam and travelled to Hamburg, Boston and San Francisco, from December 1991 to April 1993. Kawara visited both Rotterdam and Hamburg months before his show opened in these cities. Not quite the pattern re Bangkok in 2004, but related.
Or it may be that Jonathan Watkins sang the praises of Thailand (the people are friendly and calm), and the artist realised it was a country he wanted to visit.
Also, because he was wintering in Japan for so long it was inevitable that over the years he would make dates in various cities, not just in Japan but in wider Asia.
DEC.14, 2004 (presumably Calcutta, India); DEC.16.2004 (definitely Calcutta, India).
Reproduced thanks to the understanding of the One Million Years Foundation.
Bangkok followed by Calcutta?
I suspect that the main thing was the luxurious enjoyment of non-New York weather by both On and Hiroko. In New York, in December, the average maximum temperature is 6-8 degrees, centigrade. In Calcutta, the average high is a warm 26-28 degrees and in Bangkok a hot 31-32 degrees. Indeed, Bangkok, though in the Northern hemisphere, has the most amazing winter. It's dry with minimal rainfall and high sunshine. Indeed, it puts a completely different complexion on the word 'winter'.
In Calcutta, the December days are pleasant and the nights cool. It's dry, sunny and the humidity is negligible. It feels comfortable during the day and a light sweater or jacket is all that's needed for the evenings. A jacket for Hiroko and a sweater for On.
OUTRO
It's the middle of the day and On and Hiroko are in their hotel room with the AC switched on against the 32 degrees of heat in the Bangkok streets. They are both lying on their backs on their single beds. The Date Painting 10 DEC. 2004 has been begun but is not yet finished to the artist's satisfaction.
"What season is this again?" Asks Hiroko.
"Hard to say."
"What day of the week then?"
And they both laugh.
I should finish this essay by saying that December 7, 2004 was a Tuesday and December 10 was a Friday. On Kawara did not paint on Sunday when he was in Bangkok. I won't be saying any more about that Sunday mix up. But I do take up the story of On Kawara's 10 DEC. 2004 in this essay on my sister website.
Life what is it but a dream?
