Susan Hiller

Recycled works in the first section of the exhibition were the most interest to me. The ritual of recycling is just one aspect of Hiller's practice. Something that was perhaps finished can be reconsidered and remade into something else. 

Painting Blocks (1970-84) were displayed in a wall mounted glass case at eye height. Each painting had been cut up into small pieces and made into a book. These books were displayed closed and upended or lying flat. I was very aware of the edges of the cut canvas, the texture of the threads unravelling and the overall impression of blue and whiteness. Sometimes a canvas is a surface onto which a picture is painted; here the canvas had its own entity: it was an object in its own right. There was a sense of finality and closure in cutting up a painting and making it into a block. Stenciling the dimensions of the original painting and the date onto each book block reminded me of tombstones.

Alongside Painting Blocks was a display case at waist height containing Hiller's artist books including;
Rough Sea, Enquires Inquires, Levitations: Homage to Yves Klein and Fade (White).


The bookwork Big Blue (1976) was displayed opened up like a book so that some of the original  painting was visible. The cut up canvas pieces had become pages of the book and the edges had started to unravel which led aptly to the next exhibit Work in Progress (1980) a deconstructed  painting. The canvas itself had been pulled apart into long threads that were then made into 3D doodles, plaits and ropes.