On November 22, 1977, René Block received a telegram from Paris: “I AM STILL ALIVE ON KAWARA,” read the short message. Nearly two years earlier, Galerie Block had shown the solo exhibition of the artist titled On Kawara. One Million Years. The minimalist exhibition showed the first part (Past) of the book of the same name from 1970/71, in which Kawara counts back a million years into the past in ten volumes, starting in 1969 and ending in 998,031 BC. Each volume, in the form of a folder, contains 200 typewritten, photocopied sheets listing a total of 100,000 years.
At the time of the solo exhibition, the idea arose to compile an artist’s book containing as complete a collection as possible of all the telegrams sent by Kawara up to December 31, 1977, bearing the message I am still alive. Kawara had begun sending telegrams with this message to friends and companions in 1970, “often in response to inquiries,” as the exhibition catalog of the Block Gallery 1976/77 explains.1 The infinity of time, as experienced in the lists of One Million Years, is contrasted in I am still alive with a reminder of the transience of individual existence. The concept of I am still alive also differs from the artist’s previous serial works in that he commissions the production and the standardized formats of the respective recipient institutions determine the appearance of the individual telegrams. The artist’s book by Edition Block, which arranges the telegrams according to arrival time and reproduces them in their original size, was published in the fall of 1978. Beginning with the telegram to the collector couple Dorothy and Herbert Vogel dated February 4, 1970, the book contains 201 illustrations of telegrams that were sent.
The publication was preceded by a large-scale recall of the telegrams by Edition Block, which was made possible by Kawara’s precise record-keeping of the telegrams sent. Already in February 1978, a second solo exhibition by the artist titled On Kawara. I AM STILL ALIVE, at Galerie Block displayed the recalled telegrams.
The publication On Kawara. I AM STILL ALIVE was produced with the support of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, which had hosted On Kawara in 1978. Of the 800 copies of the artist’s book, 350 are paperback, while the remaining 450 are canvas-bound, numbered, and come with a slipcase.
Text: Birgit Eusterschulte
1 Braco Dimitrijević, Dan Graham, On Kawara, Roman Opalka, Exhib. cat.. Galerie René Block, 1976/77, n.p.