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Ann Hamilton to give Commencement Address

July 15, 2013

Ann Hamilton to give Commencement Address

Ann Hamilton, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Art, will give the commencement address at Ohio State’s summer term commencement. Approximately 1,750 students will receive degrees during the ceremony August 4 at the Jerome Schottenstein Center.

A visual artist, Hamilton is internationally recognized for her large-scale multimedia, multi-sensory installations. She recently premiered a major new work titled the event of a thread at Park Avenue Armory in New York City. That installation was honored as the best project in a public space in 2012 by the 400-member International Association of Art Critics United States.

Ohio State University Interim President Joseph Alutto says, “Professor Hamilton has been recognized around the world for her profound and moving work. Her immense talents as an artist, teacher, and scholar make her the ideal choice to serve as commencement speaker.”

A native of Lima, Ohio, Hamilton earned her BFA in textile design from the University of Kansas and an MFA in sculpture from the Yale University School of Art. From 1985 to 1991 she taught on the faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara. She joined the Ohio State University faculty in 1991.

In 1993 she was the only visual artist to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. In 2009, Hamilton was inducted into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

She also has been recognized with a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, National Education Association (NEA) Visual Arts Fellowship, United States Artists Fellowship and the Heinz Award, and represented the United States at the 1991 São Paulo Bienal and the 1999 Venice Biennale. Her major museum installations include those at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts; Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto; La Maison Rouge Fondation de Antoine Galbert; MASS MoCA; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; The Wanås Foundation; The Musée d'Art Contemporain; The Museum of Modern Art; The Tate Gallery; and the Dia Center for the Arts.

Ohio State’s recognition of Hamilton’s work can be seen in her permanent installation, VERSE, in the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library. Located in the Buckeye Reading Room, VERSE is a two-color cork floor laid as a field of words set in relief.