Museum Acquisition

We're thrilled 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. This is the second major acquisition by an American museum of Ohara's work following the 2017 acquisition by Smithsonian American Art Museum.

 

“365” is a series of 24 folding albums. Each album, small but expanding in length, contains precisely 365-day entries*of one self-portrait or what he calls “my inward view of the day" and another image or “my outward view of the day” taken as a pair every day over one year. 

Initially conceived as a novelty photo diary, Ohara began this daily practice on January 1st, 1970. Ohara's self-imposed practice challenged his ability to continue daily, weekly, and yearly uninterrupted. After he finished his prototype, Ohara waited thirty years to start part two on June 3, 2000. Despite this long hiatus over the following twenty-three years, Ohara once again proved his determination, continuing the project without interruption, not even a single day, until the series ended on May 1, 2023.

 

Ohara's same practice from 1972, which ended short of 365 days and is therefore not part of the "365" series, is currently in a private European collection. Shortly after returning from a months-long overseas trip, Ohara consulted with Marvin Israel, an influential art director and artist, on his 365 project, which he had 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. From 2023 to 2024, 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.

January 15, 2025