Research

 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1wmZP7CXY0GZU8sNpmw935yGkSeDbxsPyyUtv-7N815Y/edit?usp=drivesdk


In a world saturated with information and image, the Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara offers something radically different: quiet, repetition, and the minimalist documentation of time. Through his daily rituals—painting the date, sending telegrams, or mailing postcards—Kawara systematically marked his own presence without ever offering his identity. Simultaneously, Roland Barthes, in his seminal essays such as The Death of the Author and Image-Music-Text, argued for a critical shift in how we interpret art and literature. For Barthes, meaning is not determined by the artist’s intention but by the viewer's interaction with the work.  I argue that On Kawara’s conceptual practice, through its minimalist text and rejection of narrative or personal expression, exemplifies Roland Barthes’ notion of the “death of the author” and the “writerly text”; by reducing art to impersonal documentation, Kawara transforms presence into a textual field where meaning is deferred, inviting the viewer to construct their own reading of time, identity, and existence.

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