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erase On Kawara

2023 (since 1969)

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

original folded sheet, framed

unique edition

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.

Lesser known is the calendar on which Kawara registered with black circles the days in which he had done a date painting — the One Hundred Years Calendar. ON KAWARA multiple entitled 100 YEAR CALENDAR from the legendary 1968 subscription based art journal S.M.S. (Shit Must Stop). The On Kawara contribution comes from the #4 portfolio, and consists as an offset lithograph on a sheet of folded oil cloth (oil cloth is a petroleum based coated paper that is often used for inexpensive tablecloths, placemats, shelf liners, etc.)

The continues fading of the lithograph turns ultimately the artwork into a monochrome and as such adds another aspect to LAb[au]'s introduction of time within the construct of the monochrome.
(see UPB and chroma)

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

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