Untitled (The Body Object Series, #8-#16)

In these small photographs, conceived in 1984 and printed in 1993, the roles played by body and object merge and reverse. Ann Hamilton's physical agency is thwarted, often to the point of immobility, while simple, utilitarian objects become animated. In some images, objects seem to take on an amusingly irrational prosthetic role-a leather boot covers and substitutes for an arm, or a ping pong paddle stands in for a face. In others, they derail or antagonize the five senses: a basket covers Hamilton's head, blocking vision; a microphone, which should emit music, oozes paper in her direction, preempting both sound and sight; a suit is formed of thousands of tiny toothpicks, and the artist balances a chair fashioned the same way on her back, her discomfort palpable. Hamilton's monochromatic backgrounds make her compositions all the more dramatic, as uniform gray throws the dark tones of the furniture and her hair, and the white of paper and her shirt, into stirring relief. A mist of flour, blown from the artist's mouth, takes on a tangible presence when set against a granite backdrop.
Untitled (The Body Object Series) combines the homegrown aesthetic of the American midwest, where Hamilton was born and now works, with the everyday minimalist gestures of the avant-garde dancers, especially Yvonne Rainer, in whom she found artistic inspiration. These are Hamilton's signal early works. They foretell an extensive analysis-which she would go on to execute in photography, sculpture, performance, sound, video, and installation-of the complex and often humorous relationships between materials, bodies, and spatial environments.