MATT’S GALLERY 92 Webster Road, Bermondsey, London SE16 4DF T (020) 7237 0398 E [email protected] Susan Hiller Ghost / TV Press release September 25 - October 27 2019, Weds-Sun 12–6pm Susan Hiller Private View: Sunday 22 September 2019, 3-6pm 7 March 1940 – 28 January 2019 Matt’s Gallery presents Ghost / TV an exhibition of objects and video by Susan Hiller is considered one of the Susan Hiller that continues her investigations into the numinous, the most influential artists of her genera- ephemeral, and the personal. tion. Her work is held in private and public collections the world over. At the time of her passing in January 2019, Hiller was due to start Born in Tallahassee, Florida, Hiller planning her fifth exhibition with Matt’s Gallery, following on fromWork grew up in and around Cleveland, Ohio in Progress in 1980, An Entertainment in 1991, The Last Silent Movie in until 1952 when her family moved to 2008, and Channels in 2013 – shows which introduced some of her most South Florida. She went on to study groundbreaking and iconic works. The exhibition had to be postponed, Anthropology but found the freedom of and Ghost / TV has been developed since then in close collaboration with expression she craved through working Hiller’s son, Gabriel Coxhead. as an artist. After travelling the world widely throughout the 1960s she set- The display consists of two main elements, both of which relate to tled in London in the early 1970s. Hiller’s previous exhibitions at Matt’s Gallery. A video, Running on In 1980 Hiller became one of the first Empty (2017), stems from Hiller’s commission to create Channels, a artists to show at Matt’s Gallery, which monumental audio-sculptural installation that incorporates 103 cathode- Robin Klassnik founded in his Space ray tube television sets programmed to play reports of near-death Studio at Martello Street in 1979. Work experiences. While constructing Channels, Hiller and Matt’s Gallery In Progress ran from 21 April to 4 Director Robin Klassnik discovered one particular television set that May 1980. A week-long performance, Work In Progress involved unravelling spontaneously and intermittently communicated a haunting, poignant a painting into its component threads; message of its own. Their attempts to document that elusive message, each day the resulting threads were to recreate and capture the phenomenon on camera, even as the re-configured as a ‘doodle’ or thread television’s functioning proceeded to decay and degenerate in a violent drawing. medley of colour and pattern, forms the subject of Running on Empty - a This was to become the first of four work which thus becomes about artistic making itself, about processes of exhibitions that Hiller presented at collaboration, moments of serendipity, and the pleasures of visual play. Matt’s Gallery. It was followed by An The other element in the exhibition similarly raises questions about Entertainment, exhibited 19-31 Janu- ary 1991 and acquired by the Tate in its own artistic status. A macabre hand puppet of a ghost or skeleton, 1995, The Last Silent Movie which was most likely made by Hiller some time in the early 2000s, it relates to shown over six days in July 2008, and her pioneering video installation, An Entertainment, which used footage in 2013, Channels. filmed at Punch and Judy shows. However, the puppet itself was not As Hiller gained international recogni- formally regarded as a fully-fledged artwork by Hiller, but was more tion she continued to work with small, a sort of experiment, and was kept on her desk at home as a kind of independent spaces as well as big personal artefact, a negative talisman. institutions and museums throughout the world. The relationship that Matt’s Together, the works in Ghost / TV - named after Hiller’s working title for Gallery built with Hiller over these the video - continue her lifelong enquiry into how we relate to ideas of various projects and through the many mystery and the otherworldly. conversations we had around them was Ghost / TV is the 40th anniversary exhibition at Matt’s Gallery, which first very special. opened in September 1979. The exhibition is accompanied by the 40th Hiller’s significance was recognized in ‘whitebook’ publication featuring a text by Gabriel Coxhead. mid-career survey exhibitions at Lon- don’s Institute of Contemporary Arts With special thanks to Susan Hiller’s husband David Coxhead and son (1986) and Tate Liverpool (1996), in a Gabriel, who made this exhibition possible. major retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain (2011), and as part of Docu- For further information or visual material please contact us on 020 7237 menta in 2012 and 2017. 0398 or email [email protected]. The Estate of Susan Hiller is represent- Matt’s Gallery thanks the Arts Council England and Ron Henocq Fine Art ed by Lisson Gallery. for their generous support. www.mattsgallery.org MATT’S GALLERY 92 Webster Road, Bermondsey, London SE16 4DF T (020) 7237 0398 E [email protected] Press release List of works Running on Empty 2017 Single Channel HD video transferred to DVD Duration: 10:00 Untitled c. 2000-2010 Paper-mache, acrylic paint, assorted fabric, iron frame Red Proofs 1969 Acrylic paint on canvas www.mattsgallery.org.