On Kawara

Art World Abstracts: The Louvre Abu Dhabi Nabs a George Washington Portrait, and More

One would not usually go into the Middle Eastern outpost of the most storied French institution and expect to see a portrait of the first president of the United States of America. But nevertheless, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which will open in a Jean Nouvel-designed be-domed building later this fall, has acquired a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington from the Armand Hammer Foundation in Los Angeles. It shows the founding father sitting at a desk scribbling on a piece of paper, and will be installed next to a portrait of a triumphant Napoleon bounding over the Alps on a horse to go capture more of the continent, which is just so rich.

By Nate Freeman

What It’s Like to Read Dates for On Kawara’s ‘One Million Years’ at the Guggenheim

Today, the first full retrospective of the late conceptual art master On Kawara opens at the Guggenheim, gifting the city with a sprawling and dynamic—by turns profound, witty, swaggering, petty, neurotic, precise, and blissful—examination of time itself. The Guggenheim's iconic spiral ramp is lined with Kawara's date paintings, day after day, year after year, in addition to other documentary projects that charted his habits, wanderings, and thoughts. We took it all in, and it's a joy to see all these different parts of his practice put together: massive date paintings completed in the days leading up to the moon landing, his obsessive daily postcards to John Baldessari and Dan Graham that say nothing but the time he woke up, maps of cities marked with the paths he walked, the lists of people he hung out with on a certain day, and his final works proclaiming "I AM STILL ALIVE," until he stopped proclaiming that, because he wasn't.

By Nate Freeman and Alanna Martinez

The Year Ahead: Museum Shows We’re Looking Forward to in Early 2015

The art world calendar is a loud and colorful one, with blockbuster museum shows jostling for attention with biennales around the globe, the all-out spectacle of major art fairs, and the celebration of cash of openings at megagalleries. He's a small list of a few things we're looking forward to, with a few large-scale events (Armory, Frieze, Venice) passed over in favor of contained exhibitions. Start getting excited, and exhausted—as always, there's so much stuff to do this year.

By Nate Freeman, Alanna Martinez, and Alexandra Peers

On Kawara, Whose Art Marked the Days of His Life, Has Died at 81

By Nate Freeman

On the Difficulties of On Kawara Upkeep

By Dan Duray

On Kawara

Art World Abstracts: The Louvre Abu Dhabi Nabs a George Washington Portrait, and More

What It’s Like to Read Dates for On Kawara’s ‘One Million Years’ at the Guggenheim

The Year Ahead: Museum Shows We’re Looking Forward to in Early 2015

On Kawara, Whose Art Marked the Days of His Life, Has Died at 81

On the Difficulties of On Kawara Upkeep

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