Pigeons and Silk: Ann Hamilton Discusses Art in Public

“It is in motion that things are alive,” Ann Hamilton said on Wednesday as part of a lecture entitled “Art in Public Space.” Hamilton is a public artist, one who designs works that are not intended for display in museums, but in the communal outside world. In her works, Hamilton had to not only explain what her creations mean, but also the confounding public nature of her works.

Hamilton spoke at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum as part of the 2012-2013 ArtisTalk lecture series. Unlike the institutionalized mediums of painting, sculpture, or, more recently, installation, public art is a less common art form. The conversation about public art came at an exciting time  for Harvard’s art museums, given the progress on the ongoing Fogg Museum and the 32 Quincy Street renovation projects.

According to Mary Schneider Enriquez, Houghton Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, the choice of Hamilton as a speaker was due to Hamilton’s conceptualization process and also reflected an effort to inspire public reflection and conversation about public art. Enriquez understands public art as being centrally connected to the quotidian. “Today you can have everything from the fountain in front of the Science Center to Krzysztof Wodiczko's video projection on Bunker Hill. It can be so many things.” Yet, according to her, it is admiration in the eyes of the spectator that makes public art resonate with viewers.

“I do better in non-museum spaces. I prefer spaces with their own social history that imbues the work,” Hamilton said. She spoke about the transformation of everyday, familiar locales into places which allow for intimate artistic or personal moments, even in the widest of spaces. Her recent Park Avenue Armory show, entitled “The Event of a Thread,” which ran from this past December to January, brought together fabric, string, and music to create a multisensory experience designed to stop viewers in their tracks.

Hamilton’s work in the past has incorporated materials as diverse as digital video projection, silk, Tibetan prayer bells, pigeons and peacocks, Mexican jumping beans, and prostheses. “Why read to pigeons?” Hamilton asked the audience, referring to the New York pigeons actually function as part of the audience in “The Event of a Thread.” “Because you may read differently!” she said.

Hamilton’s talk followed a retrospective format in which photographic slides recreated the emotions and formal impressions that may have been felt during fresh viewings. By condensing a substantial period of time into a progression of images, she identified recurrent formal motifs in her past works and how they intersect with the themes illustrated. Viewers saw elements of Hamilton’s past work, including personal-edition silkscreen newspaper from the Pulitzer Building’s “stylus” commission and the awe-inspiring circus-like peacock sanctuary at the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, with “The Event of a Thread” as the finale.

Though public art initially appears dependent on physical presence in local spaces, Hamilton’s artworks have had their impact across geographic lines. Ragnheidur Harpa Leifsdottir, a performance artist visiting the U.S. from Iceland to see a friend, said she enjoyed the happy coincidence of seeing one of her art icons lecture in person that night after devouring Hamilton’s content on the internet. For her, the allure of the work lies in the relationship the viewer shares with the artist. “I come from a background of performance. The viewer is very important, and her [Hamilton’s] respect for that is the magic of the work,” she said.

Attendees Donna di Bartolomeo and Yarima Ariza, both graduates of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, had the fortune of seeing Hamilton’s past exhibitions in person. “I’ve known of her work before, I saw her speak in Miami. I love her work because of the immersive, visceral environments,” di Bartolomeo says.

“I was struck by the textiles, the touch, the tactility of the work,” Ariza says.

The “ArtisTalk” lecture series will continue on April 23 with Doris Salcedo, a native Colombian who has in the past produced work that makes use of the mediums of sculpture as well as installation.

—Staff writer Jay A. Drummond II can be reached at jdrummond@college.harvard.edu.