Susan Philipsz at The Woodlands
SOUND INSTALLATION
For her site-specific project in the Federal mansion at The Woodlands, surrounded by a Victorian cemetery, Glaswegian Turner Prize winning artist Susan Philipsz culls from the gothic tales and intimate motifs of Edgar Allan Poe. Philipsz is an artist that often uses sound as a trigger for lost historic memory, full of resonance, longing, melancholy and soft disillusion. As with many of her artworks, this project will consider the past, future and present of a particular site to transport the public into a reflective state awakening them to their environment. This artwork is the result of collaboration between Philadelphia Contemporary and The Woodlands. Exhibition opens April 4th with an artist talk April 5th. For more information visit: www.philadelphiacontemporary.org/
About The Artist
Over the past two decades, Susan Philipsz has explored the psychological and sculptural potential of sound. The artist's immersive environments of architecture and song heighten the visitor’s engagement with their surroundings while inspiring thoughtful introspection. The music Philipsz selects – which has ranged from sixteenth century ballads and Irish folk tunes to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust – responds specifically to the space in which the work is installed. While each piece is unique, the storylines and references are often recognizable, exploring familiar themes of loss, longing, hope, and return. These universal narratives trigger personal reactions while also temporarily bridging the gaps between the individual and the collective, as well as interior and exterior spaces.
Born in 1965 in Glasgow, Philipsz currently lives and works in Berlin. She received a BFA in Sculpture from Duncan of Jordanstone College in Dundee, Scotland in 1993, and an MFA from the University of Ulster in Belfast in 1994. In 2000, she completed a fellowship at MoMA PS1 in New York. She received the Turner Prize in 2010 and was awarded an OBE in 2014 for services to British art.
Since the mid-1990s, Philipsz’s sound installations have been exhibited at many prestigious institutions and public venues around the world. She has presented solo exhibitions at Castello di Rivoli in Italy (2019), Tate Modern (2018) and Tate Britain (2015) in London, Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm (2017), Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria (2016), Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin (2014), the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh (2013), K21 Standehaus Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Dusseldorf, Germany (2013), Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2011), Aspen Art Museum in Colorado (2010-11), Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State in Columbus, OH (2009-10), Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany (2009), Institute of Contemporary Art in London (2008), among others. Installations by Philipsz were included in Skulptur Projekte Muenster in 2007 and the 55th Carnegie International in 2008. Her work Study for Strings was conceived for dOCUMENTA 13 in 2012 and will be performed at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis on January 28-29, 2020, in conjunction with Philipsz’s solo exhibition there.
The artist’s major commissions include Lowlands, her Turner Prize-winning work for Glasgow International in 2010, SURROUND ME: A Song Cycle for the City of London, a public project organized by Artangel in London (2010-11); Day is Done, a permanent installation organized by the Trust for Governors Island in New York (2014); New Canaan, a project for the Grace Farms Foundation (2015); and Prelude in the Form of a Passacaglia at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2020).
Philipsz’s work can be found in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Castello di Rivoli in Italy, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, SFMOMA in San Francisco, The Tate in London, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
