Number My Days, Oh Lord

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart. (Psalm 90:12)

The artist On Kawara (1933-2014) had a thing for time, or rather for the ways we humans experience, think about, and record time. He counted his time on earth in days (29,771) rather than years, and created many works that addressed his concerns about time (and, I’m guessing, mortality). A part of one of those projects, the Today series, is shown here, as I found it on the wall at Dia:Beacon, a remarkable art space in the Hudson Valley that I visited for the first time this past week. The visit also marked the first time I ever heard of Kawara. 

Kawara began the Today series on January 4, 1966 and continued working on it, his magnum opus, until the day he died. According to the curator’s notes “Kawara required that each painting be completed on the date depicted on its surface and in the language and grammar of the country in which it was completed.” He painted one of these pieces every day of his remaining life, mixing the paint anew each day, hand painting the date (not using stencil) each time. If he worked on a painting and didn’t complete it by the end of the day, he destroyed it. The completed ones were each stored in their own cardboard box, often with a newspaper clipping published that same day in whatever country he happened to be working.

Say what you will about “modern” or “conceptual” art, I found this undertaking, the rigorous execution of one smallish painting each day, this taking of one’s own attendance, astounding. Obsessive, yes, but also tender in its near banality. To see a number of these canvases mounted around an entire room at Dia gave me pause. Why would someone do this when there are so many other things one could paint? Flowers and mountains and pretty birds. Portraits of beloved people. And yet, the making and sharing of these stark black and white testaments to individual days, not special ones, but any old day, seemed to me an act of courage, a staring into the abyss that is our mortality and, well, counting on it.

Though I say Kawara made paintings for “any old day”, I chose this one to share because the date represented was memorable for me and also, coincidentally, involved counting. On New Year’s Eve 1992, I had the good fortune to find myself climbing a hill in Kyoto, Japan with thousands of other people in a great crush to reach Choin-In Temple for Joya No Kane, the ringing out of the giant temple bell 108 times, once for each human desire (according to Buddhism). We circled the shrine in a throng as a team of monks drew back on ropes wrapped around a great log, and then let it sail into the bell, ringing it as they bowed, chanted, and caught the ropes to ring again and again, ringing out the 108th time to mark the turning of the year. Just like that it was January 1, 1993. And there I was, a few months shy of turning thirty, surrounded by men and women in kimonoed finery under a canopy of fireworks, sake-tipsy and giddy with it all. It felt quite spiritual, plus it was A LOT of fun, and a little terrifying given the number of people involved!

Even more remarkable than that particular New Year’s celebration, I've been lucky enough to observe another turning of the year, 59 in all, heading for 60. Here’s wishing everyone a joyful 2023.