Past Exhibitions

HERE: Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, Maya Lin

Compilation of Maya Lin, Jenny Holzer, and Ann Hamilton works

Explore ideas of place, time, language, and perception through projects by three highly influential, Ohio-born visual artists whose careers align with the 30-year life of the Wexner Center.

While Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, and Maya Lin are peers, HERE marks the first time they’ve exhibited together. Through contemplative yet distinct formal vocabularies, the works featured in HERE cultivate new connections to our surroundings. Presented in celebration of the Wexner Center’s 30th anniversary, HERE fills our galleries while activating spaces beyond, with components appearing outdoors, across Ohio State’s Columbus campus, and around the community.

Ann Hamilton (b. 1956, Lima, Ohio), a two-time Wexner Center Artist Residency Award recipient, presents when an object reaches for your hand, a collaboration unfolding over the year between the Wex and Ohio State’s Thompson Library in conjunction with the university’s 150th anniversary. Hamilton used outmoded scanners whose shallow depth of field creates ethereal images of objects rarely seen by the public from various Columbus campus special collections. 

These images, together with scans of objects from personal collections, are presented in book-form stacks on tables in the center’s gallery and on the second level of Thompson's stacks tower. In the spirit of the university’s mission to make its archive available, visitors are encouraged to take a print from the stacks, either for themselves or to mail to an address of their choice at the mailing stations in either location. Two of the images (scanned from Ohio State's Museum of Biological Diversity) appear as large-scale murals, one in downtown Columbus at 82 North High Street and the other just outside the galleries on the north wall of the Mershon Auditorium. Watch for Hamilton at our Wex Wide Open and hear here events in November as she scans objects and takes portraits as part of her HERE project and her ongoing series O N E E V E R Y O N E

Jenny Holzer (b. 1950, Gallipolis, Ohio), known for her provocative use of language, presents new installations of earlier works, including her still timely series of posters, Truisms (1977–79) and Inflammatory Essays (1979–82). Truisms comprises nearly 300 slogans that express commonly held truths, such as “ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE.” The Inflammatory Essays are composed of statements, often incendiary, influenced by diverse religious and political manifestos. Amid Truisms is a selection of marble benches recalling those seen in public memorials and parks that are engraved with poem fragments referencing the horrors of World War II. Atop the Inflammatory Essays, an LED work scrolls in blue, linking the galleries with the visual vocabulary of tickers, screens, and kiosks that Holzer has programmed throughout the city, including those on the prominent downtown corner of Broad and High.

For HERE, Maya Lin (b. 1959, Athens, Ohio) has created site-specific installations for the center’s more public lower lobby space and inside the galleries. Made with thousands of steel pins and accumulations of industrial glass beads contoured to mirror Ohio waterways, her projects consider how rivers and aquifers have both shaped and been shaped by human endeavor, asking us to question the impact of fracking and global warming. Before entering the building, visitors will encounter Lin’s Groundswell, the center's only permanent public artwork, inspired by the Native American mounds that marked the landscapes of her youth. The work was created with the support of an Artist Residency Award in 1992–93. 

HERE is accompanied by a robust gallery guide featuring essays from writers, curators, and educators with Ohio State connections. Kent State University Museum Director Sarah J. Rogers, who was instrumental in bringing Groundswell to the Wex while director of exhibitions here, writes on Maya Lin. Poet, scholar, and former Ohio State Professor of English Henri Cole ruminates on the work of Jenny Holzer. Artist, writer, and Roy Lichtenstein Chair of Studio Art Carmen Winant reflects on touch and feeling in Ann Hamilton’s art.

Compilation of Maya Lin, Jenny Holzer, and Ann Hamilton works

Maya Lin
Pin River—Hudson Watershed (detail), 2018
Stainless steel pins
8 ft. x 14 ft. 8 in. x 1 1/2 in.
Courtesy of the artist and Pace Gallery
© Maya Lin Studio
Photo: © Kris Graves, courtesy of Pace Gallery

Jenny Holzer
From Inflammatory Essays (1979–82), 1982
Offset posters on colored paper
17 x 17" each
© 1979 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Ann Hamilton
when an object reaches for your hand
The Ohio State University, Health Sciences Library
Wexner Center for the Arts, 2019/20
Courtesy of the Ann Hamilton Studio

Installation view of Ann Hamilton at the Wexner Center for the Arts

Installation view of Ann Hamilton's when an object reaches for your hand at the Wexner Center for the Arts

Installation view of Ann Hamilton's work on the side of Mershon Auditorium

Mural of Ann Hamilton's work on the north wall of the Mershon Auditorium. Photo courtesy Orange Barrel Media

Installation view of Jenny Holzer at the Wexner Center for the Arts

Installation view of Jenny Holzer's From Inflammatory Essays (1979–82) at the Wexner Center for the Arts

Jenny Holzer, Inflammatory Essays

Jenny Holzer
From Inflammatory Essays (1979–82), 1982
Offset posters on colored paper
17 x 17" each
© 1979 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Jenny Holzer, Inflammatory Essays

Jenny Holzer
From Inflammatory Essays (1979–82), 1982
Offset posters on colored paper
17 x 17" each
© 1979 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Installation view of Maya Lin in the Wexner Center for the Arts

Installation view of Maya Lin's Pin River–Ohio Aquifers at the Wexner Center for the Arts

Maya Lin, Pin River

Maya Lin
Pin River—Hudson Watershed (detail), 2018
Stainless steel pins
8' x 14' 8" x 1 1/2"
Courtesy of Maya Lin
Photo: Kris Graves, courtesy of Pace Gallery

Installation view of Maya Lin at the Wexner Center for the Arts

Installation view of Maya Lin's How Does A River Overflow Its Banks? at the Wexner Center for the Arts

Maya Lin, From One Into Many and Back into One

Maya Lin
From One Into Many and Back into One (detail), 2017
Glass marbles, adhesive
13' x 28' x 1"
Courtesy of Maya Lin
Photo: Kerry Ryan McFate, courtesy of Pace Gallery

Installation view of Jenny Holzer at the Wexner Center for the Arts

Installation view of Jenny Holzer's works at the Wexner Center for the Arts

Truisms, Jenny Holzer

Jenny Holzer
From Truisms (1977–79), 1977
Offset posters on paper
34 3/4 x 23" each
© 1977 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY 

Green Jacket, Ann Hamilton

Ann Hamilton
when an object reaches for your hand
The Ohio State University, Historic Costume & Textiles Collection
Wexner Center for the Arts and Thompson Library, 2019/20
Courtesy of the Ann Hamilton Studio

Mollusk, Ann Hamilton

Ann Hamilton
when an object reaches for your hand
The Ohio State University, Museum of Biological Diversity, Division of Molluscs
Wexner Center for the Arts and Thompson Library, 2019/20
Courtesy of the Ann Hamilton Studio

Bedit, Ann Hamilton

Ann Hamilton
when an object reaches for your hand
The Ohio State University, Historic Costume & Textiles Collection
Wexner Center for the Arts and Thompson Library, 2019/20
Courtesy of the Ann Hamilton Studio

Baby bottle, Ann Hamilton

Ann Hamilton
when an object reaches for your hand
The Ohio State University, Health Sciences Library, Medical Heritage Center
Wexner Center for the Arts and Thompson Library, 2019/20
Courtesy of the Ann Hamilton Studio

Ann Hamilton

Ann Hamilton
Courtesy of the Ann Hamilton Studio
Photo: Calista Lyon

Jenny Holzer

Portrait of Jenny Holzer
Photo: Nanda Lanfranco

Maya Lin

Portrait of Maya Lin
Photo: Jesse Frohman

About the Artists

Ann Hamilton chevron-down chevron-up

Jenny Holzer chevron-down chevron-up

Maya Lin chevron-down chevron-up

HERE: Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, Maya Lin is organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts and curated by Senior Curator of Exhibitions Michael Goodson with Associate Curator of Exhibitions Lucy I. Zimmerman and Curatorial Assistant Kristin Helmick-Brunet.

SUPPORT FOR OFF-SITE ARTWORKS
Orange Barrel Media

MAJOR SUPPORT FOR HERE
The Crane Group

ASSISTING SUPPORT FOR HERE
Pam and Jack Beeler
Mike and Paige Crane
Dave and Nancy Gill
Jack and Charlotte Kessler

SUPPORT FOR ARTS ACCESS
Cardinal Health Foundation
Huntington Bank

GENERAL OPERATING SUPPORT
Greater Columbus Arts Council
Ohio Arts Council
The Columbus Foundation
Nationwide Foundation

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Past Exhibitions

HERE: Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, Maya Lin