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 one by Smithsonian American Art Museum, celebrating Ohara's unique contribution to international photography. 

 

“365” is a series of 24 folding albums. 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. Ohara began this daily practice on January 1st in 1970, then resumed it on June 3, 2000 and ended on May 1st, 2023. (*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: Between Part One (1970) and Part Two (2000/2001), there is a gap of thirty years - a significant hiatus that tells us Ohara might have 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.

 

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, an influential art director and artist, 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