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Artist or Maker: Ann Hamilton (b. 1956)
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Provenance: Sean Kelly, New York
Laura Carpenter Fine Art, Santa Fe
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Exhibited: Musee d'Art Conremporain de Lyon, Ann Hamilton: present-past 1984-1997, November 1997 - Februrary 1998, p. 46 (illustrated).
Columbus, OH, Wexner Center for the Arts; Cultural Trust Pittsburgh; Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art; Krannert Art museum, Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Miami Art Museum of Dade County; Mussé d'Art Contemporain de Montreal, the body and the object: Ann Hamilton 1984-1996, May 1996-January 1999, p. 14 (illustrated).
Bloomfield Hills, MI, Cranbrook Art Museum, Skin, November 1999-January 2000.
Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery, Ann Hamilton, October 1999-January 2000.
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Ann Hamilton: by mouth and hand, 1990-2001, November 2001-June 2002.
Wooster OH, College of Wooster Art Museum, Elbert Art Center Ann Hamilton: tracing language,, August 2002-October 2002.
Dublin, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Ann Hamilton at hand, March 2002 - July 2002.
Washington, DC, Curator's Office, Me, Myself, and I: Artist Self-Portraits from the Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, October 2005-December 2005.
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Literature: K. Baker, Five Artists, Santa Barbara, 1988, p. 24.
S. Stewart, ann hamilton, La Jolla, 1991, p. 47.
J. Hugo, Ann Hamilton, 21a Bienal Incernacional de Sao Paolo, Seattle, 1991, p. 23.
D. Cameron, Future Perfect, Austria, 1993, p. 3.
H. Philip-Drohojowska, "It Ain't Needlepoint," Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, 19 June 1994, p. 79.
D. von Drathen, Ann Hamilton, Munich, 2000, p. 4.
Ann Hamilton,New York, 2002, p. 18.
D. Hurgess and D. Salvioni, Art/Women/California, Parallels and Intersections, 1950-2000, Berkeley, 2002, p. 114.
A. Okabe, Art Women Images, Global Women, Tokyo, 2003, p. 65.
D. von Drathen, Vortex of Silence, Milan, 2004, p. 119.
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Notes: In these small photographs, conceived in 1984 and printed in 1993, the roles played by body and object merge and reverse. Ann Hamilton's physical agency is thwarted, often to the point of immobility, while simple, utilitarian objects become animated. In some images, objects seem to take on an amusingly irrational prosthetic role-a leather boot covers and substitutes for an arm, or a ping pong paddle stands in for a face. In others, they derail or antagonize the five senses: a basket covers Hamilton's head, blocking vision; a microphone, which should emit music, oozes paper in her direction, preempting both sound and sight; a suit is formed of thousands of tiny toothpicks, and the artist balances a chair fashioned the same way on her back, her discomfort palpable. Hamilton's monochromatic backgrounds make her compositions all the more dramatic, as uniform gray throws the dark tones of the furniture and her hair, and the white of paper and her shirt, into stirring relief. A mist of flour, blown from the artist's mouth, takes on a tangible presence when set against a granite backdrop.
Untitled (The Body Object Series) combines the homegrown aesthetic of the American midwest, where Hamilton was born and now works, with the everyday minimalist gestures of the avant-garde dancers, especially Yvonne Rainer, in whom she found artistic inspiration. These are Hamilton's signal early works. They foretell an extensive analysis-which she would go on to execute in photography, sculpture, performance, sound, video, and installation-of the complex and often humorous relationships between materials, bodies, and spatial environments.
