act of carving it and the act of uttering it are actual
acts, and how to materialize that. I started wondering
what those public documents are that need to be read,
need to be remembered, need to be touched, and need
to be present here. I’m working with the UN Declaration
of Human Rights crossing with the United States
Declaration of Independence Preamble. The Declaration
of Human Rights is an internationally sanctioned
document signed by every country, which, when you
think about it now, to have something signed by every
country is remarkable. It has been so amazing to
read the history of Eleanor Roosevelt and the making
of this document and to cross that with a national
document. The concordant form doesn’t then give
you that document in a right-reading way; it crosses
it and makes it rhythmic. The mosaic ground will be
made and the letters cut and reset back into the pattern
of the material they were cut from in such a way
that they’re in slight relief.
ANDREA: People have said about your work that it
is “process art.” Would you agree with that?
ANN: I do go through a lot of processes. I don’t know
anyone who doesn’t. I think it is processes of research
and processes of material exploration. In some works,
all of that process is evident in what you materially
experience, but that’s not always the case. It’s not always
accumulative or creative in that way.
ANDREA: It seems like you’ve always been outside
of the art world in the sense of not living where the
art markets exist. Do you feel that has given you a lot
more freedom with your work?
ANN: It probably has. When I made the decision
to move back to Ohio, which is where I grew up, I
wasn’t consciously putting myself at the margin. I
wanted to be closer to my family; I thought if it was
good for my life, it would be good for my work. There
are things I miss, of course. I love to go to New York
to see friends and see work, but there’s something
about being in Ohio that allows me to trust the inarticulate
things that need to well up — that drive the
work. I also think that the economy of living here and
my affiliation with the university make a life in art
possible. That’s something I talk about with my students.
It’s not so much talking about a career, but how
a life in art is possible and what it looks like, how you
put it together and how you make a practice that is
sustainable so that you can keep growing and keep
changing, which is so important.
ANDREA: I wanted to close with one thing that Francis
Hodgson said about photography. He says, “Photography
is the most important medium for the latter
part of the 20th century, more important than prose and
more important than cinema. Photography is transnational
and transcultural… It is not a limited medium.
No other medium equals it in its efficient transmission
of powerful images, certainly not prose.” He finishes
saying, “I see photography as being either a key, or the
key to everything else.” How do you feel about this?
ANN: I don’t like making hierarchical statements, like
“this is better than this,” or “this is more important
than that.” That’s not how I think. I would say that
I can be as touched, and moved, and informed, and
changed by a line of prose or poetry as I can by a photograph,
and I would never want to say that one is
better or more than another. It’s not just the media,
but also who is using the tool that’s important.
Ann Hamilton. Clockwise from top: Face to Face - 65, 2001; Face to Face - 38, 2001; Face to Face - 28, 2001. Courtesy of the artist.
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