Internationally acclaimed visual artist to give Ohio State summer commencement address
Ann Hamilton, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Art, will deliver the commencement address at The Ohio State University’s summer term commencement.
Approximately 1,750 students will receive degrees during the ceremony, which begins at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 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 the Park Avenue Armory in New York.
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, 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.
Also during the commencement ceremony, the university will award honorary degrees to Ellen Rudy, a 1958 graduate of the Ohio State University College of Nursing and former dean of the University of Pittsburgh College of Nursing, and Albert Soloway, dean and professor emeritus in the Ohio State University College of Pharmacy.
The university also will award Distinguished Service Awards to William Blair, who has earned three degrees from Ohio State and for nearly half a century has been a tireless advocate for the university's interests in state government; and Ruann Ernst, a highly successful businesswoman and enduring advocate for education, who has given back to Ohio State from the day she earned her first degree in 1968.
About The Ohio State University
Founded in 1870, The Ohio State University is a world-class public research university and the leading comprehensive teaching and research institution in the state of Ohio. With more than 63,000 students (including 56,000 in Columbus), the Wexner Medical Center, 14 colleges, 80 centers, and 175 majors, the university offers its students tremendous breadth and depth of opportunity in the liberal arts, the sciences, and the professions.
