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erase On Kawara

2023 / since 1968

LAb[au], Manuel Abendroth
Size: 55 x 100 cm
Technique: framed and unfolded original offset print on oil cloth

Information

original folded sheet, 1968 S.M.S. edition, framed

unique edition

timeline

2016 ___ Auctioning of the art edition 

2021 ___ starting to photograph the process of bleaching and signing 

2023 ___ AXIOM #2, Malzeit - Zeit malen, KBK, Brussels 

2024 /25  WHAT IF IT WAS ALL JUST A MIRAGE?, Gallery Bigaignon, Paris

Abstract

The artwork quotes Rauschenberg's emblematic 'erase...' written over On Kawara's 1968 S.M.S. edition. This superimposition gives the fading print a specific reading that renders invisible the artist's 100-year calendar of 'date paintings'- it confronts the material process (time) with the dematerialization of art (idea)-while also being a conceptual homage.

text

The work superimposes Rauschenberg's emblematic quotation ‘erase...’ on On Kawara's 1968 S.M.S. edition. This edition was On Kawara's first attempt to produce a ‘hundred years calendar,’ which corresponds approximately to the length of a lifetime and allows him the indexing of all his ‘date paintings.’. 


The quotation ‘erase’ confronts one of the major authors of conceptual art with one of their major statements, which, at the time, represented a paradigm shift in art. It is superimposed on a work that is fading, leaving only a few traces of the original edition. By confronting a phenomenon of time, the whitening of the print caused by light, the artwork puts the recording of time into question, which is central to On Kawara's practice. 


More than questioning the representation of time, the work questions the dematerialisation of art, another central argument of conceptual art. The preservation of the work and the value it represents is eliminated by a natural process. Unlike Rauschenberg's manifesto, which involved purposefully destroying an edition of De Kooning's work, this act is interpreted as a conceptual homage to On Kawara. The print, which becomes a blank sheet of white paper, permits us to rewrite time, much like a palimpsest allows for repeated inscription. Finally, the work becomes a monochrome folded and bleached over time, advocating the concept over its representation.


see also the UPB monochrome series, dealing in a similar way with the concept of the monochrome and time

see also the Pb_Cu painting, dealing in a similar way with a diary  and the erase of time,- memory.

Collection

the artwork is still available

painting, LAb[au]'s artistic practice is organised in different sections: painting, writing, calculating, transcoding and in artworks, installations and site-specific projects

LAb[au] is working on the relationship between: architecture & art - language & art, at the crossing of conceptual, concrete, and digital art.

official logo of LAb[au]
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