SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Beginning in 1998, New
York
City–based Japanese artist On Kawara subtly minimalized his longstanding
already-minimalist Today series, the date-painting project he began in
1966.
Still ritualistically maintaining the self-imposed constraints of the
project
(principally, that the date on which the painting was begun be its
alphanumeric
subject and that it be completed before the end of that day and, if not,
destroyed), Kawara opted to modulate the reception of a week’s worth of
these
works (January 1 to January 7, 1997) by stationing them, under the title
Pure
Consciousness, in nineteen kindergartens across the globe.