Susan Hiller

Born in 1940 in Florida, Susan Hiller completed her studies in art and anthropology in the United States. In 1969 she moved to England, where she still lives and works. In the early 1970s, working in antithesis to the more rationalistic direction of Conceptual art and Minimalism, but in line with certain aspects of feminist thought of the time, Hiller became known for her innovative artistic practices. She created collective works with the participation of groups of people, and works based on methodologies that, until then, had been characteristic of anthropological research rather than art. Hiller utilizes different media – ranging from performance to installation and from sculpture to video and audio work.

Her show at Castello di Rivoli includes Dream Mapping (Mappatura del sogno, 1974), Dedicated to the Unknown Artists (Dedicato agli artisti sconosciuti, 1972/6) and Witness (Testimone, 2000). In Dream Mapping (Mappatura del sogno, 1974), the artist organized a laboratory for studying dreams, documenting the collective and personal experience of a group of participants on an excursion in the countryside, where they camped out and dreamed for three days. The aspect of her work that has had the greatest influence on subsequent generations of artists is the creation of “museological” pieces, such as Dedicated to the Unknown Artists (Dedicato agli artisti sconosciuti, 1972/6), a work based on modalities of presentation typical of traditional museums. In this project, artistic technique mimics and repeats the classifying methodology of an archivist who organizes “finds” of a culture. Hiller reveals seemingly less important areas and places of daily life, things that are generally ignored, or forgotten aspects of our shared cultural production. Her projects have been described as veritable “investigations of the cultural unconscious.” The artist probes evil, dreams, the eruption of the unconscious into everyday life, turning both a conceptual and an anthropological eye on the mysterious and hidden workings of thought processes, on the relationship between the visible and the invisible world, and on madness. She investigates disparate elements, such as dreams, automatic writing, and extrasensory phenomena, but also the effects and less well-known practices of people who use photo booths, wallpaper, postcard collections, and other marginal aspects and places in popular culture. In her recent sound installation, Witness (Testimone, 2000), commissioned by Artangel and first created in a church in London, the viewer walks through an acoustical labyrinth in which the recorded voices of different people recount paranormal experiences and visions of UFO sightings.

Curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

Concetto, Corpo e Sogno/ Concept, Body and Dream This project includes works by “classic” conceptual artists, such as Joseph Kosuth and Lawrence Weiner, artists such as Dan Graham who, working in different directions, have developed a conceptual analysis of perception and experience, and others, not traditionally defined as “conceptual,” who instead have worked within the field of performance, installation art, and the exploration of the mysterious and less rational side of the mind, such as Joan Jonas and Susan Hiller. This project is organized around five solo exhibitions, presented in succession by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: Lawrence Weiner (March 28 – July 30), Susan Hiller (April 11 – July 30), Dan Graham (April 29 – July 30), Joseph Kosuth (May 16 – July 30), and Joan Jonas (May 30 – July 30). Each solo show includes historical works alongside more recent or new projects by the artist. Thanks to the support of the Fondazione CRT for Modern and Contemporary Art, seven of the exhibited works will become part of Castello di Rivoli’s permanent collection.

Pressetext

Concetto, Corpo e Sogno / Concept, Body and Dream / Konzept, Körper und Traum:
Susan Hiller
Kurator: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev