Ann Hamilton: Sense

Printed on paper made from Japanese shrubs, this fabulous work of book art documents Ann Hamilton’s fascination with tactility

American artist Ann Hamilton (born 1956) has, throughout her practice, used videos and still images as part of her larger installation works, though they have rarely been the singular focus of a project. This publication brings together vocabulary from four bodies of image-based work produced over the last five years and includes photographic portraits as well as lens-less contact scans of ornithological taxidermy, fabrics and garments, and objects from various personal and institutional collections.

Reprocessed through multiple printings on tissue Gampi and newsprint, the images emphasize the tactile nature of their substrate and Hamilton’s material hand. The work’s physical presence is reinforced by the textured surface of the book’s pages and scale shifts. This volume thus becomes an art object of its own; repetition, the atmospheric nature of the images’ shallow depths of field, and the intuitive connections made between different bodies of work create an almost filmlike cadence that renders the felt qualities of touch.