POSTSCRIPT
2025
It was after writing the synopsis of this book, and its chapter-by-chapter summary, that I realised this additional chapter would be necessary. Which is fine because I never want this writing project to end. Key concept, the art of biography.
As I've said before, I first became interested in On Kawara on encountering his work at the Lisson Gallery in 1992. Four Date Paintings from May and June of 1991 in one room; ten volumes containing typed dates going from 1981 to a million years into the future in another. The work moved me profoundly. I was also blown away in February of 2021 when I built up a picture of On Kawara's loft full of Date Paintings in the year he began his 'Today' project. If someone's work impresses me that much, then I want to know all about them.
On Kawara did not want me or anyone else to know very much about him as a person. He wanted his work to be seen and appreciated for its own sake. However, by creating 'I GOT UP", 'I WENT' and 'I MET' he was laying down the most basic information with which one could build up a biography if one was sufficiently painstaking. Did he appreciate that this would be possible and that one day strangers would be able to understand a great deal about his one and only life? I think this was one of the reasons why he stopped doing these series. But he did not turn his back on the self-observation series that he'd already completed, as I will show.
After 1979, On Kawara concentrated on his Date Painting and on raising a family of two children with Hiroko, Sahe having come along to join her brother. But in 1980 a first retrospective book was published On Kawara: continuity/discontinuity. This printed all On Kawara's Journals from 1966 to 1979, revealing exactly where and when he had made each and every Date Painting from that time. There are also seven 'I WENT' maps from Brazilia in February 1969, telling us very little in themselves. The 'I MET' maps are from the first seven days of 1973, when On was in Stockholm. And the five 'I GOT UP' postcards were five days in a row from the batch that On Kawara sent to Kasper's older daughter, Lili, in December 1978 from Hong Kong and Korea. Effectively, no biographical insight could be forthcoming from any of the three series documenting such fringe areas of the artist's life, the choices just underlining that the artist was doing these things every day.
In 1986, ten years after his year-long residency in Berlin, and when Akito and Sahe were still young, Kawara was given editorial input into the book On Kawara Berlin 1976-1986. As I mention in the 1976 chapter, Kawara included just three 'I MET' lists from the time in Germany, with Koichi Ono and Yuri Ono appearing at the head of two of them. Also, three 'I WENT' maps were included, one showing the flat that he and Hiroko stayed for the first week of the Berlin residency. The book included a lot of 'I GOT UP' cards showing the message side, 330 in all, approximately half of the total cards sent out from Berlin. Plus 51 picture sides in colour. In all, from a biographical perspective, again not much to pick up on. Just On Kawara's getting up times. Not enough to be gleaning any insight into his day-to-day life or his personality. But the fact that Koichi Ono's name was on to out of three 'I MET' lists meant I was motivated to get in touch with the now elderly professor of art who generously replied from his place of retirement in Japan.
In 1996 when Kawara was given the opportunity of editing a huge tome about his work, On Kawara: Whole and Parts,1964-1995, the artist again included sections on the three self-observation series. For a start, 22 'I WENT' maps spread throughout the eleven years. Plus nine 'I GOT UP' cards sent to Roger Mazarguil from a nine-day stretch in April 1971. And an 'I MET' list from each day in the month of July, 1968. Do you see? It's almost as if On Kawara was taking care that there be no opportunity to investigate the overlap between any two of the series never mind all three. By which I mean there was no 'I WENT' map included for either July 1968 or April 1971. Precious little info for anyone hoping to prise open the lid on On Kawara the man.
In 2000, Kasper König arranged for his brother, Walther König, to publish ON KAWARA: Horizontality/Verticality. No 'I MET' information is given at all in this beautiful book. The volume consists entirely of 'I WENT' on each left-hand page, and the equivalent 'I GOT UP' on the right. These record each city that On Kawara visited, but never include two days for any one place. And they give no information as to whether the day was a Date Painting day. Or whether the city was somehere that On Kawara stayed for a long time (New York, Mexico City, Stockholm, Halifax and Berlin) or for a day or two (there are more than a hundred cities included in the book). In other words, you just get the impression that On Kawara was incredibly well travelled (he was) and that he would get up at a certain time and take a stroll around whatever city he happened to be in. Insight into his life? Virtually nil. I suppose you would realise that he took a trip across America in 1973 and further trips south and north in 1974 and 1975. But you wouldn't know that he was accompanied by Hiroko on all these long trips. You might even think he had gone alone and by bus. Which is how On Kawara liked it: privacy respected. It was enough for the public to know that someone was doing all this travelling, sending postcards every day, meeting people. The public wasn't allowed to know anything interior about him.
Any potential biographer keeping tags on On Kawara via his published output wouldn't even realise that Soroku Toyoshima, Aoki and Nobu Fukui existed at this stage, and that On saw them most days/evenings of his Manhattan life. Nor that On Kawara loved to play mah jongg or chess all night.
I suspect On must have weighed up certain things before taking the plunge and having the three series published in total. First, in 2004, it was 'I MET' that was published in 12 volumes, 4790 pages in all. By then more than 24 years had passed since the final 'I MET' of 17 September, 1979. So presumably it didn't matter to anyone else who was on the lists. Except that it did. I was able to write to many of the individuals, those that were still alive, who appeared often, or at significant times, and I got replies from about a dozen people. Most significantly Nobu Fukui re New York; Ansell Bray re New York, Roscoe and Canada; Koichi Ono re Berlin; and Heinz Nigg re Bern and New York. But I also got memorable replies and sometimes useful information from Cecilia de Torres (New York), Braco Dimittrijevic (Berlin), Jean Pfaff (Halifax), Linda Weintraub (New York), Stephen Kaltenbach (New York), Barbara Hill (Houston) and Tak Toyoshima (New York).
Would On Kawara have anticipated this kind of exercise? I mean, a biographer feeding on 'I MET" in order to build up a picture of his social network and then asking the survivors personal questions about their interaction with On Kawara. This is what Linda Weintraub told me. 'Regrettably, my memory has dimmed over the intervening decades. I recall the ordeal of securing an interview. The gallery was extremely protective, and intent on protecting Kawara from interactions that would not be meaningful for him. Over time, my earnest appeal and evidence of my professional credentials allowed me access. Yes, we met in the Lucky Strike. I never asked questions. In fact, I barely spoke. His first words were to instruct me to put away my pad and pen. He would not allow me to take notes. Instead, I was to listen. And listen I did. I summoned the full extent of my attention span and memory capacity. The meeting lasted hours. Throughout, Kawara delivered a non-stop, coolly-delivered, brilliantly-articulated oration on profound truths of time and place and the universe for an audience of one….just me! .'
Actually, Linda Weintraub's meeting with On Kawara was in 1996, so I didn't get her name from an 'I MET' list. The equivalent people from the 1968-1979 are either dead (like Ursula Meyer, who died in 2003) or elderly and uncontactable (such as Lucy Lippard). So perhaps On Kawara calculated that by 2004 any researcher was not going to establish much.
The paragraph I've quoted from Linda's email is so gloriously full of a contradiction. On Kawara would not make public statements. But on occasion he would give so much of his time and energy to a private individual. Which reminds me of that other choice of his: not to be photographed. How on earth did he manage that through his years of art world fame? Imagine Bob Dylan or Princess Di deciding that they didn't want to be photographed. The paparazzi would simply say collectively "Good luck with that one, mate." And they would snap their subject all day long.
Through the 1990s, new photos of Princess Diana appeared in the press every single day. the truth is that there was no popular interest in On Kawara. There was no popular interest in America or Europe in Asian people of either gender. They were virtually invisible in the film industry or as athletes (no publicity for the best table-tennis players in the world!). And the elite art world, which was interested in On Kawara, even though he was Asian, was proud of its moral compass and respected his wishes for anonymity. If On Kawara walked into my room right now, I would not try and take a photo of him. Hopefully, he would ask me to remain seated and listen. And listen I would. I would summon the full extent of my attention span and memory capacity. The meeting would last hours. Throughout, Kawara would coolly deliver a non-stop, brilliantly-articulated oration on profound truths of time and place and the universe for an audience of one….moi.
In 2007 'I WENT' appeared in 12 volumes. And in 2008 'I GOT UP: appeared in another 12 annual volumes, all three series published by Michele Didier of Paris. I suspect 'I GOT UP' came last because the postcards would have to be collected from their owners, where possible, and photogrpahed by Michele Didier's team for the edition. And of course, as one postcard was being reproduced per day, that meant the second one wasn't. So On Kawara would have been able to hide certain information if he so chose. Like who got the one gaucho cards when the two gaucho cards were going to Frank Donegan? And when did Nobu Fukui get his single card? And when did his friend Soroku get cards, assuming he did get them, as his best friend Aoki most certainly did. It's possible he sent a card or cards to Jospeh Beuys or Andy Warhol but chose not to draw attention to such things. That's speculation on my part and I doubt if it did happen.
I came across Linda Weintraub's name through research into On Kawara that Karlyn de Jongh was doing in 2008. Karlyn collected a set of questions to be put to On Kawara, but the artist refused to accept delivery of the questions never mind answer them. He wouldn't have anything to do with such a biographical exercise. He had just overseen the publishing of the complete 'I MET', 'I WENT and 'I GOT UP', but that relentless, bare skeleton of an autobiogrpahy was all that he wanted to place in the public realm. And, of course, it's true that the 79 questions collected by Karlyn de Jongh are flatteringly On-referential in a way that simply wouldn't have interested On Kawara.
Let's amplify that. A range of art world luminaries asked questions that often referred to both On Kawara's achievement and their own place in his history. Joseph Kosuth's question was simply: 'When will you call me?' Margot Heller, director of the South London Gallery, asked more interestingly: 'Do you find that the idea or possibility of making a date painting continues to nourish you every day, even if the idea often doesn't result in a material work?'
The questions were sent to On Kawara as postcards. He returned each and every one of them, stamped 'RETURN TO SENDER'. Was that On Kawara playing along with what Karlyn de Jongh was setting up? Yes and no. Yes to the art object, no to the biographical exercise.
In a sense, the 2004/2007/2008 publications by Michele Didier wasn't as significant for a biographer as it might have been, in that only 100 sets of each edition were made available, and each cost several thousand pounds to acquire. So the only people who would have had access to the info would have been rich collectors and a few art libraries. In 2022, I was in contact with the only worldwide public library (in Toronto) that seemed to have the complete 'I MET'. And simultaneously I was in touch with the only public library (in Michigan) that seemed to have the complete 'I WENT'. I got useful help from both institutions (especially from Toronto, the librarian there excelled himself), but there are limits. I was also in communication with a private collector who had invested in 'I GOT UP', but in the end he decided to leave the work in its original shrink wrapping in a storage facility on the edge of the city he lived in, so as to maximise its monetary value for his future self. Pity the poor biographer!
No, save your pity, dear reader. This work is enriched by having had access to two individuals who knew On Kawara in person. Heinz Nigg met On Kawara in Bern in 1974, then stayed with him for a fortnight in Manhattan later that year. He kept a diary, which has been useful to me. Heinz also invited me to Zurich where we were able to discuss On Kawara in more depth, and to visit Bern where On had stayed for a fortnight while his show 'One Year's Production' took place in 1974.
Jonathan Watkins, recently retired director of the Ikon in Birmingham, knew On Kawara from 1998 to a year or so before On's death. Jonathan stayed with On and Hiroko in New York, Japan and Paris and was able to tell me much about On Kawara the person when we shared Zoom calls in 2021 and 2022. He was able to say proudly that on one occasion he had beaten On Kawara at chess (they played quite often, apparently). I don't think Jonathan would have said anything like as much as he did if he hadn't been comfortable with the way I was using the material. And I was keeping him abreast of my work on a chapter-by-chapter basis. I thank him for the trust he showed in me and for the value of the information he presented.
One other source of personal info about On Kawara came from cracking the complex codes that he made, with the help of Anders Delbom and Tommy Wrede in Sweden. Traveller's Song, once translated from pairs of coloured lines to words, reveals On's nostalgic feeling towards the river valley he came from in Japan. And the code that dealt with enormous and tiny numbers ended up being - as well as evidence that On Kawara read MAD Magazine - a reinforcement of On Kawara's commitment to the Apollo mission. On Kawara approved of mankind going into space. He was interested in astrophysics. He was fascinated by the search for what happened at the beginning of time, 13.8 billion years ago and counting.
So there you have it. There have been ups and downs. But on the whole I have to be satisfied with the input I've had from other people.
What happened between 2008 and 2014, when On Kawara died of lung cancer at the age of 81? Surely he would have lived for a lot longer if he hadn't been such a heavy smoker all his life, child of the Twentieth Century as he was.
On helped with the curation of large shows of his work, notably in 2008, 2012 and 2014. He went on Date Painting until the results were unsatisfactory. It cannot be emphasised enough how good the finish is on an On Kawara Date Painting. But they stop in 2013, just as imperfections come to be barely visible. I don't suppose terminal cancer leaves your hand steady and your focus reliable. Not towards the end.
In his last year or so, On rented a flat of his own in Manhattan. Jonathan Watkins told me this. On loved his family and wanted to spend his last days with them. But he also needed to be alone with his consciousness, that thing which had fascinated him all his life. Never more so than when he knew it was on the way out.
Near to the very end he did not want visitors. He did not even want to see Jonathan. However, he did ask to see Kasper König. After all they'd Date Painted together since 1967. They's raised families in parallel and those family members had always mixed freely. Kasper was part of On's family. It was particularly generous of Jonathan to tell me this story in the way that he did.
Hiroko told Ansell Bray that one of the last things that On said to her was that he wished they could go fishing again, fly fishing for salmon on the Ecum Secum. Of course, Hiroko told Ansell this story after On's death, no doubt thinking of old Ansell's feelings when she did so.
Let's focus on the key moment in On Kawara's post-1979 life at this point. I want to zero-in on 2004, when he was 72. That's when he must have decided that he would make available the whole of 'I MET', 'I WENT' and 'I GOT UP', though it would take four years to do so. Was he thinking that a biographer would step in and take advantage of the data? No. If he'd wanted that then Kasper König could have commissioned a writer to come up with an authorised biography. He just didn't want his privacy breached any more than he had already breached it for his own purposes. "Let the raw data suffice," were his watchwords. Those lists and maps that mean virtually nothing in themselves. The internet was fully established by the early 2000s. Better not let the data be out there where absolutely anyone could access it. Keep it confined to an expensive art world publication. Just in case.
*
In 2023, nearly ten years after On Kawara's death, Tama Art University put the whole of 'I GOT UP', 'I WENT' and 'I MET' online. This must have been with the permission of Million Years Foundation, On Kawara's estate. Perhaps On Kawara had dictated this from his death bed, After all, he had said that there should be no new shows of Date Paintings (after On Kawara: Silence at the Guggenheim, New York) until ten years after his death. So it wouldn't surprise me if he'd done something similar re his self-observation work.
Hmmm. On balance, I don't think he would have authorised such a move. If the point was the work itself and not the worker behind it, then don't provide an outline to your extremely unusual and enterprising day-to-day life in a form that a researcher can jump from map to list to postcard with the flick of a mouse. That was a 'mistake' then. And On Kawara didn't make mistakes. I expect Million Years Foundation made the decision independently, not realising they were undermining the artist's wishes. The family was only doing so because the ongoing members so admired what On had achieved. Think Max Brod and the unpublished manuscripts of Franz Kafka. Not quite the same thing, but let it stand.
The Tama Art University initiative was when everything came together for my own work. By making sure I knew what was on every sheet of paper, and by connecting the three series each and every day, at last I was able to lift the lid on a life of immorality and debauchery. Well, no, I'm joking. But I was able to tell quite a lot about the unique personailty who had Date Painted his way around the world from 1966 to 1979 in such style. And when I added to the raw data by asking the most urgent questions I had of my respondents from 'I MET' - or retrieving this information in retrospect - I was able to present a fairly full picture of On Kawara in his prime. Actually, I mustn't exaggerate. Of three of the four most precious communications, those with Nobu Fukui, Ansell Bray and Koichi Ono, the window of opportunity was only open for a short while, anything from a week to a couple of months. But after that it closed and would not open again. Not yet anyway.
Take Koichi Ono, for example. When I first got in touch, he was delighted to be reminded of his friendship with On Kawara, and over several emails the professor told me how they met, where they met as a foursome, what they did together, who else On met, and anecdotes involving Hiroko and Dan Graham. The names of Samuel Beckett and Iggy pop came up, though alas the anecdotes concerning the latter two did not involve On Kawara. But then, when I had access to all the 'I WENT' maps and 'I MET 'lists and realised that On escorted Hiroko to a Berlin hospital one day in December 1976 and then, along with Koichi and Yuri, visited Hiroko every second day for a week, Koichi did not answer my delicately put questions about this. I envisage that he recalled how protective On Kawara had been of his privacy fifty years before, and realised he should not give away the priveleged informaton that he possessed, even several years after the master's death.
But I need to mention Nobu as well. It was so good for my project when he offered to answer my questions when I approached him on the basis of his presence on so many 'I MET' lists. He told me stories that were full of life, in particular he told me about Dan Graham and On. He told me about borrowing On's templates so that he could produce his own backwards and upside down Date Painting that On clearly disapproved of. He told me about On's habit of bringing Date Paintings to all-night mah jongg sessions and either starting them there or finishing them. He told me that On was by far the best mah jongg player but that by focussing on the tiles in his hands he occasionally made the completion of a Date Painting a battle against time, and that on one occasion, though On's skill and speed and focus were astonishing to behold, the artist declared the finished picture to be unfinsihed and that he only ever took notice of his own watch when deciding if it was midnight and so time to stop painting. But if it was so good that Nobu told me these things it was so bad that he suddenly broke off communications and told me not to write to him again. Why? Had the ghost of On Kawara whispered in his ear that the work was supposed to speak for itself and all else concerning the worker was to be shrouded in silence.
When I stand back from this project, I have to ask myself a question. Have I intruded on On Kawara's posthommous privacy? Have I distracted anyone from that which really matters - his life's work? God, I hope not. I so hope I am increasing the interest in the extraordinary work of On Kawara by showing what a special person he was. Basing this portrait on his work but not stopping there. And by doing so turning people towards his work.
*
And so we're almost up to date. We're almost finished.
When sending out a manuscript of this biography to agents I have been thinking about the cover I would like it to have. If I have to self-publish On Kawara: Timeshine, then I will be in complete control of this issue, but for now it is only a proposal for literary agents or traditional publishers.
The intended cover is an image of the exemplary artist, which is to say Vincent van Gogh. Why not an image of On Kawara? Well, there are none of the artist, post-Japan. Except the photo of the back of him Date Painting in a Holiday Inn in Houston on JAN. 1, 1975. However, the photo in question was taken by Hiroko, and I'm not sure that Million Years Foundation would give me permission to use it as a book cover. They might do. But I would hate to ask and get silence in reply. I would take it to signal some kind of family disapproval of my whole project. And I could do without that.
Anyway, I love the image of van Gogh on his way to work: Artist on the Road to Tarascon. When I was about 30, which is to say 37 years ago, I tried to make an 'exact' copy as the original had been destroyed in Germany in the Second World War. Van Gogh and On Kawara are the two artists who have had the biggest impact on my life. By miles. Back in 1989/90 I painted about a dozen van Goghs as I was writing the novel Archie van Gogh. That book is unpublished but it has its unique qualities. No-one could read about Archie's trip to the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and not burst out laughing several times. At least that's how I responded to my own manuscript when I last read it a few years ago.
My biography of On Kawara, Timeshine, focuses on 1966-1979, when he was Date Painting and doing the three self-observation series. My novel on van Gogh, focussed on his life from 1888-1890 when he was living in Provence and sending near-daily letters to his brother in Paris.
A biography of Van Gogh from 1888 to 1890 would have similarities to a biography of On Kawara from 1966 to 1979. Both artists were painting in an impassioned way on almost a daily basis. Though Kawara's huge effort was relentless and controlled, in contrast to van Gogh's emotional transparency and tenacity. The other parallel I would draw is between On Kawara's daily habits and van Gogh's. Though maybe that isn't saying much. Van Gogh got up at a certain time. He went places and he met people. But basically, he painted. And he wrote letters to his brother Theo on, as I say, almost a daily basis. I have a splendid edition of those letters, three hardback volumes in a solid slipcase, but I will not open them today. I can well remember the gist of the hundeds of letters from Arles or Saint Remy to Paris:
'I AM NOT GOING TO COMMIT SUICIDE DON'T WORRY.'
'I AM NOT GOING TO COMMIT SUICIDE WORRY'.
'I AM GOING TO SLEEP FORGET IT.'
Actually, every single one of Vincent's letters to Theo shouted: 'I AM STILL ALIVE'. Until the terrible day they stopped arriving at Theo, Joanna and the baby's home in Paris.
But let's not go there. Let me return to the image I'm proposing for the cover of this book I'm still writing. On the road to Tarascon. On. On the road to Tarascon. I hope you have the image to hand, dear reader. I hope you have the image in your hand.
The following lines come to mind, via MacBeth, from the foreword of an Agatha Christie book that I reread this week after having first read it in 1974 or 1975. I have had to change one word in order for it to work in the context of Vincent van Gogh and On Kawara:
By the pricking of my thumbs
Something vital this way comes.
Ultimately, maybe that's what van Gogh and On Kawara had in common. I remember Jonathan Watkins telling me that when visiting On in Paris he found the artist very keen to show him where Van Gogh had lived with Theo prior to Vincent's trip to the south of France. The van Gogh brothers' flat's location was close to On's own.
What can I say? Vincent van Gogh and On Kawara, spiritual twins separated by a century. But I really can't use a self-portrait by one on my biography of the other.
*
Once again, I could leave it there (and think of an alternative book cover). But a further scene comes to mind and I must set it down as I believe it will help show how I have used 'I MET' etc., plus interviews of related parties, plus a pinch of je ne sais quoi, to build up this biography.
It concerns Carl Andre, the famous minimalist who On Kawara met a few times. To be specific, he is on the 'I MET' lists of April 8, 1970; June 29 and June 30, 1976; as well as on April 26 and May 2, 1977.
On three of these five lists his name is beside Angela Westwater's. That's the New York gallerist who gave shows to both On Kawara and Carl Andre from late 1975 onwards. How do I know that Angela Westwater and Carl Andre were an item by then? Heinz Nigg mentions it in his November 1974 diary, at which time he met Carl Andre and other New York minimalists, such as Sol Lewitt and Donald Judd, while staying with On Kawara. On Kawara was not part of these daytime meetings in downtown Manhattan, but would speak to Heinz at the end of each day.
Angela Westwater's name does not appear on the 'I MET' for April 26, 1977. On that list, Carl Andre's name is followed by Nobu Fukui's. Nobu wrote to me about Carl Andre and On Kawara and this is what he said:
'In the beginning of 1970 On started to promote his work: He invited Sol Lewitt and Carl Andre for dinner also around that time. When I met Carl Andre at a SoHo bar, he said about On "That guy has funny ideas!" He didn't get it.'
I now realise (thanks to Tama Art University) that the dinner party that Nobu referred to must have taken place on April 8, 1970. As well as Sol Lewitt and his partner, Mimi Wheeler, Joseph Kosuth and Christine Kozlov were 'met' that day, and so presumably were of the party. Sol Lewitt, Joseph Kosuth and Christine Kozlov were all sent 'I GOT UP' cards in 1968/69 when On was in Mexico and South America. Pehaps Carl Andre was sent a few cards then as well, but if so, On did not allow that fact to become apparent in the 2008 edition of 'I GOT UP'. (Just as Nobu's Date Painting was never to emerge after On and Hiroko looked after it for the year that Nobu returned to Japan. And just as Nobu's single 'I GOT UP' card is shrouded in mystery too.)
Clearly, On Kawara wanted Carl Andre as an art world ally back in 1970, at which point he had been Date Painting for five years and was ready to show his work. But as Carl 'didn't get it' that was not to be. Subsequent meetings when Carl Andre had been in Angela Westwater's company were presumably just unavoidable business meetings, where little or nothing other than politenesses would have been exchanged between Kawara and Andre.
Now over this last Christmas holiday I was listening to a Radio 4 podcast called 'Death of an Artist'. This told the story of the fate of Ana Mendieta, who had married Carl Andre early in 1985. (Carl Andre had been through several women by this stage.) Later that year, Ana Mendieta fell to her death from their flat on the 34th floor of 300 Mercer Street, a street that runs parallel to and next to Greene Street, where On and Hiroko lived from 1977 onwards.
On the night of Sunday, September 8, Andre and his wife had been heard arguing and a woman had been heard screaming, "No, no, no, no...". The program made it clear that Andre had almost certainly pushed Mendieta to her death in apopolectic rage. Apparently, they had been arguing about their respective art world statuses, and Andre had been left with scratches to his face. His story was that Ana Mendieta had jumped to her death after retreating to their bedroom alone. But he was to change his story more than once.
Carl Andre was given a relatively easy ride by both the police and the judge (the case didn't go before a jury). The program suggests that he was helped at every turn by the patriarchy, which included the testimony of Lawrence Weiner and the silence of other art world luminaries. One particularly telling testimony, was the story of Ellen Barkim, actress, who said on Twitter in 2020 (in other words, decades later) that as a young woman in the 1970s she had been working as a waitress at an art world event for Carl Andre. Andre had got angry about an aspect of her service and had wrapped his hands around her throat, shoved her back against a wall and had lifted her whole body so that her feet left the ground in what must have been a terrifying ordeal. Three men intervened and managed to get him off her.
By the end of the program, I was almost certain that Carl Andre had murdered Ana Mendieta in a fit of male rage. And I agreed with the podcaster, Helen Molesworth, that Ana Mendieta had been let down by everyone except a group of feminists who had done what they could to keep the injustice of the case in the public eye.
The podcast got me thinking about Carl Andre's work, which I had been beginning to admire, and I consulted a couple of interviews in which he spoke about his upbringing and his job on the railroad in a way that I felt was humble and enlightened. I concluded you could thoroughly disapprove of one aspect of a man's character but still respect his work.
The tragic fall was in the early morning of Sunday, September 8, 1985, and there was a report in the New York Times of September 10. I have no doubt that On Kawara would have read the story. And I can imagine sometime later an exchange between On and Hiroko.
Hiroko: "What a terrible thing!"
On: "I feel so sorry for Ana Mendieta."
Hiroko: "What do you feel about Carl?"
On: "He has done, as you say, a terrible thing. He will never be able to forgive himself."
Hiroko: "You feel sorry for him? He killed that poor woman. By all accounts out of a fit of jealousy."
On: "He has done a truly awful thing. He may not go to jail as he is denying the murder. But he won't be able to deny the truth of the situation to himself."
On Kawara sees that Hiroko is still upset and he moves towards her. He hugs his wife and tries to assure her of his undying love. He is there for her. After a minute or so he finds himself saying...
On: "If your life was at stake I would gladly let every single one of my Date Paintings be destroyed, if that would save you."
Hiroko (smiling): "I believe you would. But what would Kasper say?"
On: "Don't worry about Kasper. He is the man I would entrust to make sure every one of the Dates was tracked down and destroyed."
Hiroko: "Your life's work!"
On: "My life's work is as nothing compared to my love of you and the children."
Hiroko: "That poor woman."
On: "I know. I know."
Gosh, am I going to end my painstakingly researched biography on that note? A fictional conversation with no claim to veracity behind it. But then again there's the story that Yayoi Kusama told about her time renting a loft in the same building as On Kawara back in 1966. 'One day I was struck by fear while I was standing in the building. I cried out: "I'm scared. Somebody, please come." There came Mr Kawara: "Don’t worry. No need to be scared, I am with you.’”
So I'm happy with the fictional dialogue between On and Hiroko. It feels right. The dialogues crop up throughout the book. They feel right too. They reflect what I have come to understand was the loyal and loving relationship between the two.
Hiroko: "And then what would you do after you had saved my life?"
On: "I would get back to my Date Painting. Though not every day. Indeed not even very often these days, as you have surely observed."
So that's it. The End. Crack open the bubbly. Though I will just add a colophon to my next remark.
Let tomorrow be a Date Painting day.
JAN. 31, 2025
BLAIRGOWRIE
I call this chapter 'ENDGAME' but the real endgame starts with 'GAME ON: 2022' and continues through 2023, 2024 and 2025. You can find these sections on a sister website.
