don another skin and how that changes you and the
way you’re seen.
ANDREA: I was wondering why you chose a man’s
suit. Was it because you could get more quills into it?
ANN: That’s a really good question. At the time that
was made, I saw the generic quality of the suit as
being – not genderless; it’s a man’s suit – but more
androgynous. There was an anonymity and commonness
to it. I don’t know if I would have made that decision
now, but that’s what I was thinking at the time.
ANDREA: Soon after that, you were quoted saying
that making pictures wasn’t what it is about.
ANN: After that project, I was trying to understand
the difference between a live tableau or experience,
and the image of that. That was at a time when I remember
seeing Sandy Skoglund’s work, where things
were set up for the camera. I explored a few things in
my studio that worked in that way and I realized I
was not interested in the picture of the experience — I
was interested in the experience. What is the form of
making work that allows and invites other people to
enter that experience with you? What are the forms of
that entry and what does that actually mean?
ANDREA: You’ve always had this affectionate attachment
to textiles. For me, that material relates to
a very feminine way of expressing yourself. Has being
a woman influenced your practice?
ANN: In every way. My experience is as a female
body. I think that has everything to do with the work,
even if it’s not the subject of work.
was that the apparatus, the mechanism of the camera,
is no longer between myself and another person. It’s
more of standing face-to-face in a way that’s really
vulnerable. You’re never supposed to stand in public
with your mouth open, right? I thought about it being
a record of that moment, that time of standing face-toface
and the act of recognition that passes in that time.
The other thing about it that’s important to mention
is that I had a plastic container and little film canisters
that were made into pinhole cameras that could sit in
my mouth. It was something I could travel with, and
a way for me to be present with people in different
circumstances, to work in a way that wasn’t always
dependent on a giant project in a big architectural
space. It would be something I would do on the side
while working on a big project. It was like sketching.
ANDREA: Did you know all the people you photographed
in this series, or were some of them strangers?
ANN: It’s a combination. I didn’t necessarily know the
people, but I didn’t just go up to people on the street. I
was working in Japan on a labor-intensive project with
a lot of people who I didn’t share a language with. At
break, I would set up and I would take some pictures.
It was a nice way to make contact with someone without
really knowing them. Obviously, there’s family; I
subjected all of them to this. My son would say, “I hate
it when you do these weird things. Now you’re taking
pictures with your mouth.” Once, I was at the White
House at the end of Clinton’s last term for something
Yo-Yo Ma organized on arts and diplomacy. I took my
cameras with me because I thought it might be interesting.
When Madeleine Albright walked by, I had a
camera in my mouth and I said, “Can I take your picture?”
and I opened my mouth.
ANDREA: What is the connection between your largescale
work and your more intimate photography?
ANN: The work has always gone back-and-forth between
the very small and close at hand, and the volumetric
and very large. The pinhole work became interesting
because I thought of the cavity of the mouth
as a space, not a thing. Is there some analogue between
the cavity of the mouth and architecture? What
if the orifice through which verbal language exits becomes
an orifice of sight? My work comes from these
simple questions. It’s a very associative path. You’re
in a process, and you’re finding your questions, and
you’re finding your form, and you’re finding a way
your form addresses your questions. When I first
took those photos, what was really interesting to me
ANDREA: Robert Storr has said in reference to your
work, “It makes you feel with the senses and with the
mind.” Do you think about how your viewers will
respond to your work and what you would like them
to take away? Is it a visceral feeling?
ANN: Everyone’s experience is individual and full of
different kinds of information. There’s the information
we take in through all of our senses and there’s
the information that comes in through the written
word, through spoken word, and through sound. It’s
the ways in which those material elements and phenomena
intersect in you that becomes the piece. There
isn’t some narrative to get. The work is very physically
concrete and on the other hand, its relationships
are relational and abstract. They’re about the felt
Ann Hamilton. Oneeveryone - Vivian, 2014. Courtesy Ann Hamilton Studio and Carl Solway Gallery.
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