After studying anthropology (among other subjects) at Tulane University in New Orleans, Susan Hiller started working as an anthropologist before she obtained her PhD in 1965. She started experimenting with happenings and collective actions, and in 1972 performed her series Hand Grenades, in which she set her own paintings on fire. Following this attack on painting, which she carried out as a sort of ritual, she proceeded to define her work method, which consists of making inventories of the visual forms at her disposal while cross-referencing several other disciplines – ethnography, art history – and using several mediums...
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■ Susan Hiller, Bech M., Marcus M., Milne L. (texts), Roskilde, Museet for Samtidskunst, 2002; The Provisional Texture of Reality: Selected Talks and Texts, 1977-2007, Kokoli A. M. (dir.), Zurich, JRP/Ringier, 2008.
