“Though Kawara may have tried to erase his hand by making the Date Paintings so exact, I do think the concept of the artist’s hand was important to him—maybe not in the traditional way we think about it in terms of gesture and brushstrokes, but he did do everything by hand. He lettered his paintings by hand, he stamped his postcards by hand; even after the advent of computers, he still used typewriters. The making of the object and the material object, I believe, were important to him, so if not the artist’s hand, per se, perhaps it was about the artist’s participation—or presence—for Kawara.”
—Anne Wheeler
