Ann Hamilton (privation and excesses - chair)

felt hat, honey, cloth, metal chair
32 ½ × 18 ½ × 171/2 inches / 82.6 × 47 × 44.5 cm

During the installation privation and excesses, 1989, an attendant sat in a chair, a cloth across his or her lap, wringing his or her hands in a hatful of honey, looking out toward a field of pennies set into a skin of honey, carpeting the room’s concrete floor. This multi-part object is composed of hat, honey, cloth, and chair, and distills materially the relationships of the larger installation even though the performing figure is absent. For Hamilton, the presence of honey—refilled each time the work is exhibited—implies the action performed in the installation.

Photo credit: D. James Dee
Text excerpted from Ann Hamilton: An Inventory of Objects. New York: Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2006. Joan Simon