Susan Hiller uses ephemeral, everyday objects, telling their stories and extracting new meanings from them, producing art which is both visually stimulating and emotionally compelling. This book explores in some detail her art and influence.
Ann Gallagheris head of collections (British Art) at Tate. Yves-Alain Boisis a professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, New Jersey. Guy Brettis a London-based art critic, curator, and lecturer on art. Jorg Heiseris coeditor of Friezemagazine. Alexandra Kokoliis a lecturer in critical and contextual studies at Grays School of Art. Jan Verwoertis a freelance writer and art critic.
A former anthropologist, Susan Hiller has, since the late 1970s, forged an interface between critical writing and a visual art practice in which feminist and postcolonial cultural politics are fused with idiosyncratic explorations of science, magic and the continuing lure of psychoanalysis. In a 2001 interview, she stated, "What I think art provides is something like an instigation or an enhanced awareness of how we are all collaboratively and creatively implicated in making a culture." This comprehensive volume compiles previously published essays, interviews, papers, lectures and other ephemera which document Hillers incisive interventions into contemporary debates on the shifting roles of art and theory. Structured in three sections, the book--part of JRP]Ringiers "Positions" series--is simultaneously theoretical and deeply personal. Born in Tallahassee, Florida Susan Hiller has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s.
This book is the most thorough and up-to-date survey of the work of Susan Hiller, one of most influential artists of her generation. Moving fluidly between film, audio, video, and projection, and drawing on found materials such as wallpaper, postcards, and audio interviews, Hillers large-scale installations have done much in recent decades to redefine what a work of art can be. Much of her work is centered on the subconscious mind and ideas of the paranormal, exploring close encounters, automatic writing, and extrasensory perception, among other subjects. This enthralling survey of her entire career, published to accompany a major Tate exhibition, includes a conversation between the critics Guy Brett and Yves-Alan Bois, and the artist.