Susan Hiller (Florida, 1940-London, 2019) was one of the most prominent artists of her generation and her works have traveled the world as a way of capturing the unknown, that which, as Cortázar sought, is on the other side of things. . The museum … Helga de Alvear opens this Friday the first major exhibition dedicated to Hiller since his death, a temporary exhibition curated by Andrew Price that can be visited until October 20, 2024.
The exhibition is entitled ‘Dedicated to the Unknown’ and, as the museum’s director, Sandra Guimarães, said at the presentation on Friday, it aims to show the public “the breadth of the artist’s research on that which escapes rationality and lies beyond what we recognise.”
Although the bulk of the temporary exhibition is located in the Casa Grande building, the presentation took place in a room of the permanent collection that has been specifically set up to house one of Susan Hiller’s most outstanding works, which belongs to the Helga de Alvear collection and which has served as a starting point for the organization of the exhibition. It is the work titled ‘Thoughts are free’ and it is an installation in which the room appears covered with the lyrics of a hundred popular songs in different languages, and there is a personalized ‘jukebox’ where the visitor can choose the one they want. prefer and listen to it with headphones.
The curator, Andrew Price, and the museum director, Sandra Guimarães, this Friday at the presentation of the exhibition.
Jorge Rey
The curator of the exhibition, Andrew Price, also spoke at the event. He began by explaining that he had the opportunity to work alongside Susan Hiller during the five years prior to her death in 2019 and collaborated with her in the creation of some of her works. Price explained how the American artist abandoned anthropology when she was preparing to obtain her doctorate and decided to dedicate herself to art, driven by a special sensitivity that made her rethink her understanding of the things around her, where she perceived realities beyond those that meet the naked eye.
According to Sandra Guimarães, this has been reflected in paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos and installations where the artist explores phenomena such as beliefs in extrasensory perception, dream interpretation, automatic writing, collective activities of the subconscious or telekinesis. She does this, as Guimarães points out, without “defending or denying the reality of these phenomena, but rather to present this material as social facts that exist and that, taken together, reveal that there is something more elusive, disturbing and fascinating beneath the surface than what at first glance seems easy to understand.”
A visitor looks at one of the works on display in the room on automatic writing.
Jorge Rey
Susan Hiller herself once described this way of perceiving: “Our mental configuration as human beings probably prevents us from knowing much of what is real, and each language also establishes limits, but from time to time people experience ruptures.”
What not to miss
The exhibition includes a selection from some of Hiller’s earliest to his latest works. For TODAY, curator Andrew Price selects four that, from his point of view, should not be missed by anyone visiting the Helga exhibition. One of them is the one that greets the visitor as soon as they enter the Big House and is titled ‘After Duchamp’. It is one of the artist’s latest compositions, since she created it between 2016 and 2017, and it is made up of 50 portraits of people to which Hiller has added colors that represent the radiation emitted by the person portrayed.
Price also highlights ‘Journey to the Country of the Tarahumaras’, a series that is the result of thinking and rethinking symbols that are indecipherable to us, left in writing by ancient cultures that are now extinct, such as that of the Tarahumaras, an indigenous community in northern Mexico.
Among the works highlighted by the curator is one of the most spectacular in the exhibition, the one titled ‘Psi Girls’, where manipulated images from films where girls or young girls perform telekinetic feats are projected on large screens tinted in different colors. “It brings us back to the widespread cultural fear of young women and their disruptive potential,” he says.
The work ‘After Duchamp’ greets the viewer upon arriving at the exhibition in the Casa Grande.
Jorge Rey
Finally, Andrew Price recommends not overlooking ‘Auras’, which under a concept similar to that of ‘After Duchamp’ delves into the ancient belief in auras and shows a field of mystical colors that radiates from the body of the people portrayed, which are images obtained on the internet.
The Helga de Alvear Museum will present the exhibition catalog in the coming months. The exhibition can be visited for free.
As part of the museum’s public programming, Andrew Price will offer a tour of the exhibition this Saturday morning (with prior registration). There will be creative workshops for children inspired by Susan Hiller’s work on one Saturday of each month and guided tours of the exhibition every Friday at 8:00 p.m.
