Susan Hiller, An Entertainment, 1990. Installation view courtesy the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Susan Hiller, An Entertainment, 1990. Installation view courtesy the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Susan Hiller, An Entertainment, 1990. Installation view courtesy the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Susan Hiller, An Entertainment, 1990. Installation view courtesy the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Susan Hiller, An Entertainment, 1990. Installation view courtesy the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Susan Hiller, An Entertainment, 1990. Installation view courtesy the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Susan Hiller, An Entertainment, 1990. Invitation card.
Susan Hiller, An Entertainment, 1990. Invitation card.
Susan Hiller, An Entertainment, 1990. Installation view courtesy the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.

Susan Hiller, An Entertainment, 1990. Installation view courtesy the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.

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Susan Hiller

An Entertainment

19 – 31 January 1991

Martello Street

Susan Hiller's new work is an intensive reworking of the traditional children's entertainment 'Punch 'N Judy' originally filmed on Super 8 from a variety of Punch ‘N Judy puppet theatres performing before live audiences. It creates an hallucinatory, thought-provoking, social and psychological revision designed for maximum effect on an adult audience. The tiny stage which provides a sufficiency of terror for the child is here exaggerated, the huge scale of the projected images dwarfing the human scale of the audience and breaking down the barriers that prevent recognition of the disturbing and deeply-felt.

"... the glove puppets, once perceived from a child's perspective on a high miniature stage, now dwarf and engulf us as gigantic spectacles of moving sound and colour, emanating from the four walls of the surrounding space." (Jean Fisher from the accompanying publication)

An Entertainment is a large scale video projection installation, using all four of the gallery walls and using quadraphonic sound. It is accompanied by a 64 page illustrated colour publication on Susan Hiller's time-based works with a major essay entitled 'The Revenants of Time' by Jean Fisher.

An Entertainment was initiated by Matt's Gallery and together with the publication produced in association with Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield and Third Eye Centre, Glasgow.