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Hiller/Martin: Provisional RealitiesPost an Event »
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
January 23 - March 29, 2014Info
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http://www.wattis.org/
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415-355-9670
The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts will present the exhibition Hiller/Martin: Provisional Realities January 23 through March 29, 2014, in the Wattis Institute galleries, located on the San Francisco campus of California College of the Arts. The exhibition is free and open to the public, with an opening reception on Thursday, January 23, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Hiller/Martin: Provisional Realities draws upon works by two artists of different generations, Susan Hiller and Daria Martin. Both were born in the United States (Martin was born and raised in San Francisco) and are now based in London. The selection of works spans different moments in each artist’s practice. Martin works exclusively in 16-millimeter film, and Hiller operates across multiple mediums.
Hiller’s installation Belshazzar’s Feast (1983-84) and Martin’s film Soft Materials (2004) are the conceptual points of departure. Though they were created 20 years apart, both reveal a deep sensitivity to the fraught, yet potentially transformative, relationship between humans and technology. The exhibition also approaches such expansive subjects as the unconscious, dreams, affect, feminism, and intimacy as well as more unusual conditions such as telekinesis, as in Hiller’s Wild Talents (1997) and mirror-touch synaesthesia, as in Martin’s Sensorium Tests (2012).
The “provisional” of the title is meant to imply a specific kind of temporality, a conditional suspension of the present that favors a visionary way of thinking. Hiller's and Martin’s respective artistic practices resist the security that a single, finite reality provides, and instead propose that parallel, alternative, and corrective realities can alter the way we perceive the past, present, and future. As a perpetually shifting concept, the present is often aligned with a progressive notion of passing time.
But, given that the present is ephemeral and the future cannot be predicted, we must also wonder about the stability of the past -- specifically, the collective and individual memories that have shaped it. How can memory destabilize our perception of the present and our understanding of the realities that inform it? Hiller/Martin: Provisional Realities offers an opportunity to consider these questions and others.
Visit wattis.org for current information concerning related programs and events. A special screening of Daria Martin’s film One of the Things that Makes Me Doubt (2010-11), followed by a talk with the artist, will take place on Friday, January 24, 2014.
Hiller/Martin: Provisional Realities is curated by CCA alumna Heidi Rabben (MA Curatorial Practice 2013) as part of the 2013-14 Kadist Curatorial Fellowship. Rabben is an independent curator and writer based in San Francisco. She earned her bachelor’s degree in art history and English literature from the University of California, Berkeley.