"Attention Becomes a Kind of Politics": Sarah Hamill on Sculpture and Interpretation

In this week episode Caitlin Woolsey (Assistant Director of the Research and Academic Program) speaks with Sarah Hamill, a scholar of modern and contemporary art and professor at Sarah Lawrence College, about the role of description in art history, and how description is always a form of interpretation. Sarah describes how the embodied experience of sculpture captured her imagination and how she came to understand the role of photography in mediating our encounters with art objects. She also discusses her current research into feminist politics, media, and sculpture in the 1970s, focused on the artist Mary Miss, and reflects on how art historical practices like slow looking may help us grapple with urgent issues like the climate crisis.