I enjoy the way he review the time. It is the finishing of that day. It is only can produce in that day. He appeals the object from existence and time, this very abstract term but in a very simplify form. Life is just a handful of pen. What is the meaning of life?
https://www.guggenheim.org/video/on-kawara-date-paintings
Known collectively as Today (1966–2013), On Kawara’s Date Paintings record nothing more than the date on which they were made. For each work in the series—Kawara produced nearly 3,000 of them over more than four decades—the artist observed a strict set of rules, inscribing the exact date he created the painting in white letters and numbers on a monochromatic ground. In this video, produced on the occasion of the exhibition On Kawara—Silence at the Guggenheim Museum, February 6–May 3, 2015, Guggenheim curator Jeffrey Weiss and Kasper König, a German curator and longtime friend of the artist, discuss the process and protocols that inform Kawara’s Today series.
以1965年定居美国纽约为分界线，河源温的创作分成了两个阶段。赴美之前，他以素描作品响誉画坛，画作呈现的是具体的事物。他也曾在墨西哥逗留，尝试创作实验艺术作品。在定居美国纽约之后，他的创作风格发生了180度的大转变，从具象走向观念，创作题材也从具体事物变成了“存在”“时间”等抽象概念。1966年之后，他就没有再出现在任何公开的场合之中，没有留下任何照片及采访记录，也从不把关于自己的任何信息和形象投放到作品之中。从此，他成为了一位藏身迷雾之中的“看不见”的艺术家。
我们不难发现，他的许多作品都是对自己存在于时间之中的简单记录：已经超过了两千张的“日期绘画”；定期寄给朋友的含有“我依然活着”信息的明信片；还有卷帙浩繁的“一百万年”。河源温的某些作品看似简单，但其创作过程其实也并非容易。以“日期绘画”为例，河源温会在特定的某一天里，用极其细致和繁琐的笔法去完成一张构图简单的日期画，如果在当日无法完成，这张画就会被销毁。通过对“生命”和“时间”的呈现，河源温用简单而又残酷的方式提醒着人们，在卷帙浩繁的历史图层里，人的生命只是寥寥数笔。生命的意义何在？也许，他已经用自己的方式向观众揭示了答案。