The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Black-and-white photograph of a person facing our left with a dress shoe sticking out of their face. The person has short hair from the side, light skin tone, and stand against a neutral background. The heel-end of the light colored shoe extends from their mouth, the lace-less eyelets of the shoe lining up with their eye.

Body object series #3 • shoe

1984

Ann Hamilton

(American, b. 1956)
America
gelatin silver print
Image: 10.3 x 10.2 cm (4 1/16 x 4 in.); Paper: 25.2 x 20.2 cm (9 15/16 x 7 15/16 in.); Framed (interior): 55.9 x 50.8 cm (22 x 20 in.); Framed (exterior): 57.5 x 52.4 cm (22 5/8 x 20 5/8 in.)
The Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2019.238
© Ann Hamilton
Location: 229C Contemporary

Did You Know?

Born in Lima and a longtime resident of Columbus, Ohio, Ann Hamilton has received many honors including the National Medal of the Arts and a MacArthur Fellowship.

Description

The body object series was Ann Hamilton’s first photographic project. Conceived and staged by the artist, these images are surrealist and absurdist, and sometimes humorous, with strong roots in conceptual, performance, and installation art. The sense of touch is a prevalent theme in Hamilton's work. Here, her imagery may be personal, but the images are universal in their evocation of the body as a receptor of sensation.
  • Brown, Heather Lemonedes. “Acquisitions 2019.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 60, no. 2 (March/April 2020): 6-7. Reproduced: P. 7; Mentioned: P. 7, 25.
  • Ann Hamilton: still and moving • the tactile image. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 14, 2025-April 19, 2026).
  • {{cite web|title=body object series #3 • shoe|url=false|author=Ann Hamilton|year=1984|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2019.238