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| "malediction"
Louver Gallery, New York
December 7, 1991 - January 4, 1992
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“malediction”
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Entering off the busy
New York streets and into Ann Hamilton's installation "malediction"
what one first encountered was a room littered with rags
on the floor. These rags had been soaked with red wine and then
wrung with water, producing a damp and pungent odor that filled
the space. Stepping on and through the field of dank sheets, viewers
entered a more private space of the gallery hidden by a 20-foot
wall. Speakers housed in the wall produced the sound of a voice
reading selections from "Song of Myself "and "The Body Electric"by
American poet Walt Whitman. Written in 1855, Whitman's works were
read with an introspective delivery, coloring the poems with feelings
of remembrance, privacy, and history. For the month that show was
open, a woman
(the artist) was found seated alone at a refectory table with her
back to the viewer. Coming closer, one could observe Hamilton filling
her mouth with dough to make an impression of the inside space of
her mouth. This impression was then placed in a large basket: a
wicker
casket from the turn of the century used to transport bodies
to the morgue. The activity was repeated every day, slowly, until
the basket was filled halfway. Across the back of the space and
in view of the artist was a wall formed from stacked bed linens.
This installation was Hamilton's first project for a commercial
gallery in New York City. Unusually attentive to the location of
the space in downtown SoHo - at the time a major center for the
art world - the piece referred to the larger social history of the
neighborhood, uncovering forgotten narratives of labor and material.
In the 19th and early 20th century, SoHo was an industrial neighborhood
and home to New York's thriving clothing industry. This industry
depended, however, on an easily exploitable workforce of immigrants,
woman, and children. This industry grew in step with America's exploding
population and economy. Laborers worked in ever-worsening sweatshop
conditions until the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911 that killed
146 workers, forcing politicians to enact laws that promoted safer
work environments and discouraged child labor.
Hamilton's "malediction" speaks to a local history, but also to
materials and experiences that transcend New York or the gallery.
The meditative, reverent actions of the artist are comparable to
a form of prayer, while the bread and wine have associations with
religion and the act of communion. The table is a place for eating,
and yet the artist is served a bowl of raw dough. The voice heard
emanating from the wall is in stark contrast to the artist's muffled
activity, and we wonder what words might look like if they dropped
out of our mouths like objects. Evocative of life, death, sustenance,
and decay, Hamilton's installation is charged with the memory of
a place and how we, today, make connections with history, labor,
and our own mortality. |
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