Anecdotal Evidence

Anecdotal Evidence

On Kawara, Thomas Struth

September 18, through November 19 2025

Leo Koenig Inc is pleased to open the fall season with the exhibition Anecdotal Evidence with works by On Kawara and Thomas Struth.

In Anecdotal Evidence, we are presenting postcard works from On Kawara’s I got Up series. This series is considered the most intimate of his works.  Spanning the years through 1968 and 1979, the artist sent 2 different postcards to friends and colleagues, stamped with the exact time he arose that day.  The series exhibits a  tangential urban poetry, combining the mass-produced and anonymous, immersing it with the extremely personal.  Layering conceptually over the banal, functional postal route of the objects, while reintroducing a formal design to a work that is at first glance non-compositional and haphazard, the objects are a declaration of being.  The postcards in this exhibition were all sent to Leo’s late father, Kasper Koenig, whose close friendship with On Kawara and his family, spanned decades.  Evidence of both the artist and the recipient’s corporeal existence instills a bittersweet impression of a friendship ephemerally etched in time.

Thomas Struth’s  black and white photographs of cities emptied of inhabitants strike at the heart of the human condition.  Photographed in the early morning, on cloudy days, the streets are devoid of sun and shadow. Lurking in the photos is a sense of longing for the inhabitants that seemed to have abandoned the place. Struth emphasizes the silence that reigns in the pictured, people-less streets, prodding the viewer to ask the questions regarding the vacuity.   Looking at the stark images, one’s mind begins to timorously question the reason for the void, the impetus of that absence. You don’t want to go there, but the structures remain persistent

Thomas Struth was recognized early in his career due to his association with the Düsseldorf School of Photography, which was led by acclaimed photography duo Bernd and Hilla Becher. An acute level of detail, and oversized proportions characterize Struth’s work, as does his ability to capture a wide range of subject matter, from urban scenes to expanses of nature, with the same prosaic yet complex approach.

Struth was born in 1954 in Geldern, West Germany, and studied at the nearby Kunstakademie Düsseldorf between 1973 and 1980, where some of his instructors included the famed abstract painter Gerhard Richter as well as the Bechers. The work and practice of these two seemingly disparate teachers both greatly influenced the burgeoning photographer in the late 1970s, he was awarded the school’s first travel scholarship to New York, where he produced black and white, somewhat deadpan cityscape photographs. In 1978, the first solo show of his work was shown at P.S.1, Institute for Art and Urban Resources, (which is known today as MoMA PS1).

He has been the subject of numerous retrospectives worldwide, including at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1994), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2003 and 2014), the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (2007) and the Haus de Kunst, Munich (2018), among others. He continues to live and work in Düsseldorf today.Born in Kariya, Japan, On Kawara moved to Tokyo in 1951.  Kawara left Japan in 1959, moving to Mexico City for several years, studying modern art and traveling around the country.  Between 1962 and 1964, he lived between New York and Paris, before settling permanently in New York.

Solo exhibitions include I READ 1966–1995 (1999), Reading One Million Years (Past and Future) (2001), Paintings of 40 Years (2004), and One Million Years (2009). In 2012, On Kawara: Date Painting(s) in New York and 136 Other Cities In 2024-2025, two concurrent exhibitions of Kawara’s work, Date Paintings and Early Works, were held at David Zwirner London and Paris, respectively.

His works have been included in numerous conceptual art surveys from the seminal Information at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1970 to 1965–1975: Reconsidering the Object of Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in 1995. Important early solo shows include On Kawara, 1973 – Produktion eines Jahres/One Year’s Production at the Kunsthalle Bern and the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, in 1974; On Kawara: continuity/discontinuity 1963–1979, which was first on view at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1980 and traveled to the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands; and The National Museum of Art, Osaka; On Kawara: Date paintings in 89 Cities, which toured from 1991 to 1993 to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Deichtorhallen Hamburg; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; On Kawara: Whole and Parts 1964–1995, on view from 1996 to 1998 at the Nouveau Musée/Institut d’art contemporain, Villeurbanne, France; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Musée d’Art Moderne, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; and On Kawara: Horizontality/Verticality at the Städtischen Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Munich, and Museum Ludwig, Cologne, in 2000–2001.

Leo Koenig Inc., Madison Avenue is open by appointment only.  Please contact us at info@leokoenig.com or call us at 212.334.7866 to make an appointment.