Image

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Ann Hamilton

malediction, 1991

Now On View

Description

Maker

Ann Hamilton, American

Title

malediction

Year

1991

Medium

Wood table and chair, enameled metal bowl, wicker casket, bread-dough mouth molds, recorded voice on compact disc

Materials/Techniques

Materials

Dimensions

86.4 x 76.2 cm (34 x 30 inches) table

Type

Sculpture

Credit

Mary B. Jackson Fund and Gift of George H. Waterman III

Object Number

2002.1

Exhibition History

The Phantom of Liberty

May 4 - December 30, 2018

Containing the quality, pace, and tone of an internal dialogue, the sound of a voice reading Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself and The Body Electric [both 1855] was that of a voice reading softly to oneself, and the text was perceived as recounting to oneself, as if to remember, rather than as performative projection.

Seated at a table between a bowl of raw dough and a basket used at the turn of the century to deliver bodies to the morgue, I slowly stuffed a piece of dough into my mouth until it took the form and impression of the mouth’s hollow space. The dough containing the impression of this inner orifice was then placed in the bottom of the casket. The activity, repeated slowly, half-filled the basket over the course of two weeks. –Ann Hamilton

Better Still

February 6 - May 2, 2004

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is malediction with the accession number of 2002.1. To request a higher resolution file, please submit an online request.

Feedback

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