On Kawara Quotes

On Kawara Quotes

On Kawara was a Japanese conceptual artist who lived in New York City from 1965. He took part in many solo and group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 1976. Wikipedia

✵ 2. January 1933 – 10. July 2014

“In a certain sense the phrase "I am still alive" can never be sent as it cannot be received by the addressee instantaneously…It is only valid at the very instant that it is being written, and in the very next second it no longer is a certainty. If the addressee receives the telegram a few hours or days later and reads it, he merely knows that the sender was alive at the very instant the telegram was sent. But when he is reading the telegram, he is totally uncertain if the content of the text is still relevant or if it is still valid The difference, the small displacement between sending and receiving, is that particular unseizable glimpse of the presence of the artist. Likewise, it is a sentence of self-reassurance…"I am still alive."”

On Kawara

The activity of telling oneself and the world "I am still alive."
On Kawara, "1970 Telegram," as cited in: " On Kawara Today http://greg.org/archive/2014/07/10/on_kawara_today.html," By greg on July 10, 2014 8:27 PM.

World , Sense , Reading