Museum Acquisition

We're very pleased to announce that "365," a significant series by LA-based photo artist Ken Ohara (b. 1942), has been acquired by Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. While a large group of photographs from his most well-known series, ONE, was acquired by Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., in 2017, this Met acquisition will be the second major American institutional collection for Ken Ohara that illuminates Ohara's unique contribution to the history of American and international photography. 

 

“365” is a series of 24 folding albums that Ohara began in 1970, resumed in 2000, and concluded in 2023. Each album,small but extending in length, contains precisely 365-day entries* of a self-portrait or what he calls “my inward view of the day" and another kind of image or “my outward view of the day” taken as a pair every day over one year.  (*only the last album has 338 entiries, 27 day shorter than 365)

Though initially conceived as a novelty photo diary, Ohara's self-imposed practice has challenged him to continue uninterrupted daily, weekly, and yearly: Part One (1970) is a work from his youth, while Part Two (2000/2001) is a middle-aged readjustment, with a gap of thirty years between them - a significant hiatus that tells us Ohara debated himself whether he should devote his remaining time to the project. In the following twenty-three years, Ohara proved his determination; he continued the project without interruption, not even a single day. He ended the series on May 1, 2023 with 27-day short of 365. 

 

Ohara's same practice in 1972, which ended short of 365 days and therefore not part of the "365" series, is currently in an European private collection. Shortly after returning from a months-long overseas trip, Ohara consulted with Marvin Israel on his 365 project, which he finished a year before. "Marvin encouraged me to continue for at least another three years to see if this becomes meaningful work in my career."

 

Ken Ohara (b. 1942) was born in Tokyo, Japan. After briefly studying photography at Nihon University, Ohara moved to New York City at the age of 19. From 1966 to 1970, he worked as an assistant for Richard Avedon and Hiro. In 1970, his first book ONE earned support from The Museum of Modern Art’s photography curator John Szarkowski. In 1974, His work was featured in “New Japanese Photography,” a groundbreaking survey show at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. From 1974 to 1975 He was a recipient of a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and for the following 15 years he worked as a commercial photographer. In the 1990s, Ohara reemerged as an artist and participated in the “Ghost in the Shell: Photography and the Human Soul,” a 1999/2000 project at Los Angeles Country Museum of Art curated by Robert Sobieszek. In 2006/2007, the retrospective exhibition “Ken Ohara: Extended Portrait Studies” was held at Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany and traveled to two other German museums. A group of Ohara's work was displayed as part of “American Voices and Visions: Modern and Contemporary Art”at Smithsonian American Art Museum’s reinstalled Modern and Contemporary Galleries from 2023 to 2024.

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January 15, 2025