Acknowledgments SelectedBibliograph

The realization of a project of this scale is larger than any single effort . It is a process that ann hamilton. La Jolla : San Diego El Jardin
relies on the commitment and participation of many individual s. Although it is not Museum of Contemporary Art, 1991. Landsca
something you can point to and name, for me, the felt presence that informs this work Text by Susan Stewart . Installati
grows out of the generosity of all who helped. I would like to acknowledge and thank for Pensione
their support the core community that made this project. Ann Hamilton . Seattle : Henry Art
A. H. Gallery, University of Washington, Pagel, D
1992. Texts by Chris Bruce , Rebecca Ann Ha
Jim Schaeufele Sue Patterson
Solnit , Buzz Spector. 56-61.
Project Manager , Dia Project Manag er, Fabric Workshop

Dia Crew: Fabric Workshop Crew: Doubletake : Collective Memory & Places w
Vicki Arndt DoinaAdam Tai Lai Li Current Art . Ziirich : Parkett in Charlest
Neil Benezra Cigdem Ari tan Jia Yi Liao association with The South Bank Rizzoli i
Paul Bloodgood Cybele Berret Jimmy Liao Centre, 1992. Texts by Lynne Cooke , Festival ,
Lynne Cooke Doug Bosch Amy Murphy Bice Curiger and Greg Hilty . Jane Jaco
Steven Evans YaneCalovski Rachel Phillips
Gregory Forte scue Debrah Davidovits Cynthia Porter
JoshGalef Jennifer Diehl Leda Ramos
Chris Lidrbauch Kevin Discitello AmyRawski
Todd Schroeder Scott Fulmer Kristine Robinson
Ann Hamilton was born in Lima, Ohio, on June 22, 1956
Gary Shakespeare Christiana Glidden Denise Rom pi Ila
design at the University of Kansas, and an M.F.A. in scul
Ron Wakkary Steven Griffin BillScanga
graduating in 1985, she has made numerous installations
Connie Walsh Mark Harle Jennie Shanker
Lorenzo Rennie Harris 1993 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
Mechtild Widrich Terry Sharp
Colleen Wolstenholme Tian F. Huang Josie Smith
Gabrielle Kanter Paul Struck tropos was realized with assistance from The Fabric Wor
Also :
Wendy Dembo RokoKawai Joe Szentivgny
Angela Ellsworth Allison Kehler Buffy Ward Funding for this project has been provided by the Dia Art
Tamara Embrey In Sook Kim Cissy Whittington group of Dia Center for the Arts, and the Dia Art Circle .
Jennifer Gross Zanetko Knil6va Alan Wiener program has also been provided through a generous grant
Susan Ingram · Maria Lee Tim Wilson tion for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Ursula Kalish Run Lu Zhong
Mary Thomas Kelly Voice: Thom Curley A catalogue documenting the installation is forthcoming .
Sean Kelly Sound Engin eering : Bob Bielecki
Kathleen Lewis Attendants: Vicki Arndt, Angela Ellsworth, Susan Stewart , Profe ssor of Engli sh at Temple Univer sity
Michael Merci I Scott Fulmer , and Connie Walsh on Thursday , February JO, 1994 at 6:30pm.

And special thanks to Marion Boulton Stroud , Founder/ Artistic Director , The Fabric
Workshop and Museum , Philadelphia.
 ANN HAMIL TON

tropos, 1993

"You have to trust the things you can't name," Ann Hamilton contends , adding, in a silhouettes in the muted light , to waft upwards t
related thought, "you feel through your body, you take in the world through your skin ."'
Experience , for Hamilton, leads to knowledge, or, more precisely, to a form of Recourse to language to describe what is there i
knowledge which is offar greater value and significance than mere codified inform ation. somatic, carnal impact being far richer than can
Such knowledge comes as much through the body and the senses as through the mind . is structured so that each component is meanin
Consequently, she views verbal language as a deeply limited or flawed vehicle for element s and to the context at large, and not as
communication since, with the exception of certain forms of poetry , it remains at best an presence of a person , an attendant rather than a
abstraction, at odds with the immediate affectivity of sensate, visceral experience. witnesses to an experience and participants the
that ensues is set against an awareness of the pa
Over the past decade , Hamilton has made numerous installations. Complexly structured in the change s in the light over the course of th
environments they provoke both strong somatic responses and wide-ranging metaphorical evolving character of the exhibition during the
associations that , together , weave a nexus of layered, nondiscursive meanings . Recognition
and recollection-that is, a kind of understanding based in memory and past experience Sensing through the feet, so central to this work
that bypasses or even precedes intellection-are the principal tools for apprehending these which in tum implies being well grounded. That
works . tropos , Hamilton ' s title for the Dia installation, relates to the concept of tropism, is the product of substantial amounts of hand la
which may be defined as a natural inborn inclination, an innate tendency to react in a Hamilton's practice and philosophy. "There's a
definite manner towards stimuli , exemplified in the behavior of plants when they bend community that develops out of that [mode of
towards the source of light . It is, however, perhaps equally appropriate to recall Nathalie satisfaction in touching things ." 3 Through such
Sarraute's adoption of this term for her celebrated book of the same name in which she feeling of collectivity that derives from the "ma
charts "interior movements that precede and prepare our words and actions, at the limits of which continues to resonate at the level of share
2
our consciousness." nurturing, tending requires an engaged attentive
in character. By means of such tending the vie
In tropos, as in many of her previous works, Hamilton binds the site into a unity by material , and, more particularly, with organic
affirming the continuity of the skin enclosing the structure . The fabric of this building is the living world, and more particularly, the dear
clearly revealed yet .subtle changes have been made to its surfaces. The window panes have natural, is a major source of many contemporary
been modified by the substitution of translucent for transparent glass,. and the concrete and environmental. In Real Presences, George
floor gently, if irregularly, graded. Light as well as sound still penetrates the membrane of human spirit is to explore possibilities of meani
the building, though the outer world is no longer revealed to sight. Woven into the seizure or proof. There are values and energies
contingent noises from the exterior is an intermittent and barely audible recording of a means, precisely, a 'sounding,' a 'saying throug
voice attempting to speak. Although these articulations are virtually unintelligible, a certain with analytical and empirical tools. 4 Hamilton's
level of communication and, above all, traces of the desire to communicate , are nonetheless ( intimations, intimations which if inimical to rea
discernible . Entering tropos, the viewer traverses a floor covered with a vast pelt of animal humanity.
hair. Stitched together in slowly undulating, often interrupted, swirls this epic "hide" starts
to resemble an endlessly surging ground, an oceanic topography. Floating on its swelling
eddies is a small metal table and stool where a seated figure meticulously erases the text of
an old book . In singeing the printed letters, he or she causes coils of smoke , languorous