Hamilton, Ann

Extract

American, 20th – 21st century, female.

Born 1956, in Lima (Ohio).

Performance artist, installation artist, photographer, video artist. Multimedia.

Ann Hamilton studied at the University of Kansas, and at Yale (geology, sculpture and textiles). She lives and works in Columbus, Ohio. A multimedia artist, her earliest shows featured numerous performance works in complex, often vast environments. Her installations are conceived as 'temporal intersections', incorporating the cultural history, geography and socio-economic characteristics of a particular site. Her work engages every area of the human experience, based on the principle that an object should 'take physical possession' of the viewer, before an attempt is made to name it (and hence to 'pin it down'). Each installation implicates a specific sensory environment and highly personal gestures. In ...