Simple, wooden frames enclose one-hundred postcards laid out in clinical rows, like a nineteenth century collection of pinned butterflies and beetles. A corresponding sheet catalogues them, naming date (if known), artist (if known), place (if known). Apart from all being about 3”x6” in dimension, all of the postcards share one other thing, their title, rough sea. The temptation is to read them left to right as film stills. Doing so creates waves that rise and crash on the changing coastline, images alter, borders alter, beaches, strictures, boats too, but the sea remains constant.
Perhaps the sign of a great work of art is its ability to endure, to make itself relevant to generations of different time periods, to continue to adapt to its interpreters’ needs long after it is created. Made in the early seventies, Susan Hiller’s conceptual work Dedicated to the Unknown Artists is a collection of old postcards acquired between 1972 and ‘76. Her piece’s title is a reflection of the craftsmanship, kitsch style and artistic vision of these now forgotten, yet once highly popular artists. However, her chosen process and method of display gets at something more than nostalgia for a bygone age of Great Britannia. In addition to venerating the fallen she also uses them to critique her own artistic contemporaries. The postcards are mounted on a sterile grid, catalogued and documented scientifically. This method of presentation reveals fascinating details within these mundane, otherwise generic, objects. Specific artists are credited with several works from all over the country. Variations in colour tinting of photo plates show pink, yellow and grey skies. When displayed together, out the context of dusty seaside shops, the collection is an inviting object of intrigue.
When first shown in the early seventies Hiller’s work met sharp criticism. The strongest accusation being that it was introducing pop art to conceptualism. In retrospect, such an allegation seems trivial, perhaps even humorous. At the time, however, such criticism was serious. Illustrating the extremity of the hostility the piece faced, Hiller explains in an interview from 2007: “I was told by a museum director that my work was too popular, that people liked it too much.”
We shouldn’t pity her too much though. Unlike criticism received in a middle school art lesson, such criticism most likely strengthened the work and ensured its longevity. By challenging the Conceptual movement, she served to advance it. Today, Dedicated to the Unknown Artist forms the corner stone to Art Sheffield 2010, Life: A User’s Manual, the city wide biennial exhibition.
George Perec’s novel, Life: A User’s Manual, a painstakingly detailed book about the minutia of the residents in a single apartment block is used as a springboard by Art Sheffield 2010’s curators. They attempt to explore the notion affect which claims that “the unspectacular acts of everyday ‘affect’ might be a way to chart a path through current circumstances.” If this all sounds slightly too academic for your liking, don’t worry. Simply put, the overall exhibition explores what appear to be small and minute details, in order to illuminate a greater whole.
In a walk through the gallery, Frederique Bergholtz, one half of the Dutch team of curators organizing the show, explains “the Susan Hiller piece was actually the starting point for thinking about this years’ Art Sheffield.” It looks at detail, the small, the remote, the minutia, and in turn offers an understanding of ourselves, British obsession with weather, and how several different people managed to create works with identical titles, but immensely varied contents.
What is curious about this piece is its ability to mould and adapt. Its role, over thirty years ago, as a two finger salute to rigid norms in conceptual art means it now serves as a defining piece of the genre. Not to be ignored, however, are the postcards themselves. Many of which are beautifully crafted and rendered images of the ocean, hotel resorts, and waves of varying size. The work revives and allows us to approach such forgotten common objects as the works of artistic merit they were based on. We look at them as contradictions, often the seas are not rough at all, they are images from the holidays that no one had, things that never happened.
