On Kawara. I Got up - photo 1
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On Kawara. I Got up - photo 3
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On Kawara. I Got up - photo 5
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On Kawara. I Got up - photo 7
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On Kawara. I Got up - photo 11
On Kawara. I Got up - photo 12
On Kawara. I Got up - photo 13

On Kawara. I Got up

Lot 31
01.10.2024 18:00UTC +01:00
Classic
Sold
€ 107 950
AuctioneerVAN HAM Kunstauktionen GmbH
Event locationGermany, Köln
Buyer Premium29%
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Archive
ID 1302413
Lot 31 | On Kawara. I Got up
Estimate value
€ 40 000 – 60 000
KAWARA, ON
1932 Kariya/Japan - 2014 New York

Title: I Got up.
Subtitle: Mixed lot of 20 postcards.
Date: 1968.
Each: Stamped and franked postcard from Argentina. Ca. 9,5 x 14cm. Stamped with the
artist's name and address in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Gloria Hotel/Hotel San Antonio), the
title, date and time of delivery and the addressee Kasper König, New York. The cards were
delivered in the period 25th October - 13th November, 1968.

Provenance:
- Collection Kasper König, Berlin (directly from artist)

Exhibitions:
- Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, 2014
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 2015
- Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden 2017/2018
- Kunstsaele Berlin, 2018
- Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe 2018/19
- Ichihara Lakeside Museum, 2021

"From 1958, On Kawara lived as a cosmopolitan nomad, dividing his time largely between New York, Paris, and Tokyo. In 1968 he began sending two postcards a day to friends, family, and acquaintances from whichever city he was in at the time. In April 1968, he sent the first cards addressed to Kasper König, who recalls, "I gave him two hundred dollars up front, which was a lot of money back then, so that he would send me postcards from his trip to Mexico."

For this project, known as the "I Got Up" series, Kawara bought picture postcards showing monuments and places of interest in a horizontal format. Using rubber stamps, Kawara printed his current address, the name and address of his recipient, and the exact time he got up that day. This rudimentary information was the only thing he included after May 10, 1969. The earlier postcards pictured here include other information; on April 10 and 12, for example, he added a handwritten note detailing what he had eaten that day: an egg for lunch and three tacos for dinner. König commented, "On collected menus at the time, but he decided not to declare them a work. For him, it was a sort of sociological study on what you could afford to eat." On the postcards sent on April 22, 24, 27, and 30, 1968, Kawara listed the names of the people he had met that day. According to König, this was "a predecessor to his "I Met" series, which he began shortly after." For this series, the artist typed out the names of all the people he had met that day and stamped the page with the date. In the same period, he recorded his daily movements in red ink on photocopied maps. These documents form the series "I Went". In 1970 Kawara began sending telegrams with the message "I AM STILL ALIVE." In 1966 he began his famous Date Paintings, mono- chrome canvases on which Kawara painted the day's date using a white sans serif typeface and formatting each one according to the conventions of the country he was in that day.

König recalls, "The I Got Up series ended in Stockholm. On Kawara wanted to cash traveler's checks at a bank, and while he was doing so, somebody switched his briefcase. The person probably thought they were getting a valuable briefcase from a Japanese diplomat, and they were certainly disappointed when all they found inside was a children's stamp set from Austria with numbers and letters, which On had used for his I Got Up postcards."

Although On Kawara's works document his existence (in space and time), there is little about them that is personal. He almost never revealed anything about his emotional state or his experience; the cards are simply affirmations and signs of life. Kawara's distanced view of the world was based on his attempt to create a life that was as deliberate as possible."

(Exhib. cat. 1000... miles to the edge. Schenkung/Donation Kasper König. Museum Ludwig Cologne, 11th November, 2023 - 17th March, 2024).
Address of auction VAN HAM Kunstauktionen GmbH
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50968 Köln
Germany
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