Portal 15

Artist Ann Hamilton (American, born 1956)

Date1999

MediumBlack and white photograph

DimensionsOverall: 1 3/4 x 13 3/4in. (4.4 x 34.9cm)

ClassificationsPHOTOGRAPHS

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number2003.4.1

Descriptiona pin hole camera photograph- Hamilton placed the camera in her mouth and took a picture of herself holding a hand mirror.

On View

On view

Collections

Photography

Label TextIn our hyper-visual world, Ann Hamilton finds that “eyes have become voracious like mouths.” She created photographs made with a pinhole camera held in her mouth. By opening her mouth, Hamilton let light enter to expose film. In this way, speaking became an act of seeing. The Portal series documents Hamilton looking at herself in a mirror. MEM 2024 Ann Hamilton's artwork investigates the interface between our perceptions of the world and how we reveal our interior selves to the world. While language is a dominant form of human expression, Hamilton is fascinated by cognition through multiple senses and through the body. She has stated: "I'm very interested in the hierarchies of our habits of perception, and how …we trust [words to] have more legitimacy than other kinds of information or ways of knowing. I think that I'm just trying to take this access and tilt it, so that the felt-quality of the words is equal to, but not dominant over, other kinds of sensory perceptions." To this end, Hamilton created a series of images made from a pinhole camera held in her mouth. In this hyper-visual world, she finds that "eyes have become voracious like mouths." Hamilton describes the process: "I have made a set of pinhole cameras that fit in my mouth. So the act of speaking is like the act of letting light enter my mouth [or the act of seeing] … As I open my mouth I am exposing film. " Hamilton's Portal series document herself looking at a mirror while in the Face to Face series she photographs other persons, places, and objects. MEM 10/03