Charles Christopher Hill

American, b. 1948

Mas Fina Como La Gallina
1972

Linen, cheese-cloth, paper
55 x 73 x 2.75 in.
Gift of the Kathryn C. Wanlass Foundation
2011.89

Throughout the 1970s, Charles Christopher Hill engaged himself fully in process art, where the time spent making a work is often as important, if not more so, than the end product itself. Especially attracted to used paper because it was free and readily available, Hill developed his own approach to creating large-scale collages by sewing together assorted types of paper, including rag, newsprint, construction paper, and crepe paper. To ensure firmness and durability, he incorporated fabrics such as the linen and cheesecloth employed in this work.

Hill began each collage by working on both sides, and then developed the composition further on the side that pleased him most aesthetically. The final stages in his creative process involved a sequence of deconstruction and reconstruction. As a metaphor for the decaying and forgotten artworks by little-known artists that he saw on his frequent visits to small museums in Europe, Hill put each collage through a kind of durability test. Typically, he buried it in the ground and then recovered and restored it, repeating the cycle as many as three or four times.

According to Hill, the title of this work was inspired by the reaction to it by a Cuban friend, who said that it was “mas na como la mierda de una gallina,” which translates roughly as: “finer than chicken shit.”

David S. Rubin

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This object has the following keywords:

• beige - A variable color generally light grayish-yellowish brown, originally referring to the color of unbleached wool.
• linen
• paper
• peach - Various tones of pinkish yellow, referring to the color of the stain of the juice of the fruit of the peach, a low spreading tree of the rose family that is widely cultivated.
• pink
• tan
• textile materials - Materials produced by weaving, felting, knotting, twining, or otherwise processing natural or synthetic fibers so that they cohere into a form or unit; traditionally excludes fiberboard, paper, papier-mâché, and papyrus, which, though also fiber products, are considered as separate types of material. For generic reference to the genre, see "textiles."

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Collecting on the Edge , 9/15/2018 - 5/4/2019
• Collecting on the Edge Part II Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art , 1/17/2019 - 5/4/2019

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