Moon Landing, 1969, a trio of “Date Paintings” by Japanese-born Conceptual artist On Kawara (1932–2014), is on view at the Menil Collection as a special loan from Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland.
Each canvas is inscribed with an important date related to the United States’ Apollo 11 lunar landing that put the first humans on the Moon: mission launch (July 16, 1969), landing of the module (July 20, 1969), and departure from the Moon (July 21, 1969). Kawara’s Today series, begun in 1966 and continued until the year before the artist’s death in 2014, comprises nearly 3,000 works that each feature a date meticulously painted in a white sans-serif font on a monochromatic support.
Kawara allowed himself one day to create each work; if a painting remained unfinished by midnight, he destroyed it. As a whole, the series calls attention to the passage of time. The Moon Landing canvases are larger than most in the series, a reflection of the cultural magnitude of the events that took place that month.
