There are some fascinating things in Kasper König’s collection, which is being auctioned at Van Ham in Cologne starting next week. Some weird things, too. One thread I see going through it is König, a hugely influential curator and museum director for decades, got many early works from artists who went on to greatness, early but not iconic.
A couple of pieces are both, though: like Wolfgang Tillmans’ 1995 photo of König’s bookshelf, which looks monumental, more like a Gursky than the Gurskys, but also offhand and intimate, like a Tillmans.
Of course, the most early and most iconic work has to be On Kawara’s date painting from 1967. König’s early and unflagging enthusiasm for Kawara’s conceptual projects was instrumental to their acclaim. And that support manifests in another Today Series painting, 21 Nov. 2003, which was a gift from the artist for König’s 60th birthday.
Which, how does that work? I mean, I’m sure everyone shopping for a Date Painting quietly gravitates to a date that means something to them. But this is the opposite. Are König’s birthday and the moon landing the only two events explicitly commemorated by Date Paintings?