Visual Arts

We can learn a great deal about On Kawara in his current exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art. If we were to leaf through all 4,772 pages of the 24 bound volumes that compose I Met 1968-1979, we could read on each typewritten page whom the artist encountered on each day of those given years. If we wanted to know where he was on those same days we could examine the maps collected in the 24 volumes and 4,772 pages of I Went 1968-1979.

MILTON HINNANT/DMN

Since 1966, On Kawara's paintings have followed the same format, with each being done in a single day and consisting of that day's date painted in uniform, white sans serif letters against an evenly painted acrylic ground.

As an internationally exhibited artist, he travels a lot, and on an impressive array of city maps from around the world he has marked his daily perambulations in colored marker. I Read, 1966-1995, which is only 18 volumes and 3,272 pages, collects newspaper clippings with annotations in red pen. Some recount major world events, but others feature sports scores and the ordinary occurrences one reads about with passing interest while staying in hotel rooms or having morning coffee at home.

We also have the evidence at the DMA that on 10 days between July 16, 1969, and May 1, 1987, On Kawara painted a painting. Since 1966, Mr. Kawara's paintings have followed the same format. Each is done in a single day, and each consists of that day's date painted in uniform, white sans serif letters against an evenly painted acrylic ground.

The series began in 1966, shortly after he moved from Japan to New York, and now numbers in the hundreds of works. The 10 paintings at the DMA are all subtly different shades of dark gray, which is Mr. Kawara's signature color, although some paintings are in red or blue. The paintings are usually only 10 by 13 inches, but he works in a variety of sizes he labels by letters from "A" to "H." Four of the smallest paintings, recently acquired by the DMA, hang outside the exhibition proper, but the 10 he chose to show are all 61 by 89 inches, his largest format.

Mr. Kawara has said that the size of the paintings relates somehow to the importance of the date, but the nature of the importance most often remains enigmatic. One of the DMA's quadrant galleries has three paintings from 1969 that correspond to the moon landing, but there is little reason to believe that consulting almanacs or encyclopedias would necessarily explain the motivation for the scale of the seven remaining paintings.

The artist has designed this exhibition, "On Kawara: Ten Tableaux and 16,952 Pages," for the Barrel Vault and Quadrant Galleries, and it is possible that the museum has never looked better. The installation is as elegant and as disciplined as is the art itself. At a time when learning about another is often equated with hearing his or her most intimate confessions on TV talk shows, the restraint and obliqueness with which Mr. Kawara imparts personal information keeps the air clear for our consideration of the other issues his approach addresses.

Mr. Kawara is immersed in the exploration of time in both its cosmic and personal manifestations. For the broader, make that much broader, picture, he presents a two-part work that in a total of 4,136 pages spread through 10 volumes numbers 1 million years into the past and 1 million years into the future. Such a time frame is dizzying if not impossible to grasp.

On a more personal level, in a drawing titled 100 Year Calendar, 23,928 Days, Mr. Kawara indicates the days he had been alive up until he considered the work completed in 1998. Beginning on Dec. 24, 1932, yellow dots mark his life, blue dots indicate days he produced a painting and the occasional red dot shows days when he produced more than one painting. Mr. Kawara knows that he is simply passing through the world, literally making his mark, encountering new people and old friends, experiencing familiar and unfamiliar cities.

One gets the sense that he finds this situation both humbling and exhilarating. Those are feelings we can share while spending time with this remarkable exhibition.

Charles Dee Mitchell is a Dallas freelance writer.

Plan your life

"On Kawara: Ten Tableaux and 16,952 Pages" continues through Aug. 24 at the Dallas Museum of Art, 1717 N. Harwood at Ross. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays through Sundays and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursdays. $10; free 5 to 9 p.m. Thursdays and first Tuesday of each month. 214-922-1200, www.dallasmuseum ofart.org.