Episode 9: ON AIR with Susan Hiller: 'Voices'

29 September 2019

This special edition of the Lisson podcast ON AIR, entitled ‘Voices’, is dedicated to the artist Susan Hiller, who died earlier this year, aged 78. Hiller’s was a unique voice in contemporary art over the last five decades and succeeded in distilling many important truths and posing enduring questions about belief and humanity, often using the speech or the impressions of others, many of which were seldom heard.

While a memorial is being held at Tate Modern in the same week as this podcast is being released – as is a presentation of important early pieces, staged in a solo booth at the Frieze Masters art fair – this episode calls on many of her friends, colleagues and admirers from all over the art world to share their memories and interpretations of her life and work.

Among these recordings are interjections from Susan Hiller herself, taped at many live panels and conversations held over the last few years, including at Tate Liverpool, Frieze Art Fair, Art Basel, Lisson Gallery, the Jewish Museum in New York, the Model in Sligo, Ireland, as well as for Resonance FM, Slade School of Art, and Hiller's alma mater of Smith College in Massachusetts.

Our thanks go to the full list of contributors who contributed to this hour of discussion: Robin Klassnik, founder and director of Matt’s Gallery; Ann Gallagher, the director of Collections for British Art at Tate; Lynne Tillman, novelist, author and art critic; James Lingwood, the co-director of Artangel; the psychoanalyst Darian Leader; art historian and critic Jörg Heiser; John C Welchmann, the Professor of Modern Art History at the University of California, San Diego; Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries and the British artist Mike Nelson.

Listen to this and all other episodes of ON AIR on Soundcloud, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.