Introduction of the artist:

Susan PHILIPSZ (UK)

Born in 1965, Glasgow, UK. Lives and works in Berlin. Selected solo exhibitions: 2012 Timeline, Edinburgh Arts Festival / 2012 Close To Me, Palazzo Reale, Milan / 2012 It Means Nothing To Me, Mizuma and One Gallery, Beijing / 2011 We Shall Be All, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago / 2011 You Are Not Alone, Haus des Rundfunks, Berlin / 2010 Surround Me, Artangel, London / Selected group exhibitions: 2012 Documenta 12, Kassel, Germany / 2010 29th S·o Paulo Biennial / 2010 Haunted, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. In 2010 she was awarded the Turner Prize for her work Lowlands.

Introduction of works:

It Means Nothing to Me, installation, variable size, 2006

I See a Darkness, installation, variable size, 2008

There Is Nothing Left Here, sounds installation, variable size, 2006

You are Not Alone, sounds installation, variable size, 2009

Susan Philipsz is an artist whose work engages with specific social contexts through sound. Often, by using her own voice, she draws the listener in to create the possibility of reflection, provoking the kind of recognition that often comes with music - the evocative nature of popular songs – to transcend the inarticulate nature of memory and desire. She explores the relationship between sound and architecture, between listening and our understanding of location, in order to conflate the private perception of sound with negotiation of public space.

Philipsz’ work in China breaks new ground in a number of ways. Firstly, it involves the use of a Chinese harp, thus signifying the acknowledgement of a traditional local culture which is foreign to her. On the other hand, there is her assertion of what is absolutely familiar through the recorded duet she sings with her father. She has inherited her beautiful lilting voice from him and we hear this now as both given, or inherited, and brought to bear on a set of circumstances she is just beginning to negotiate. She reminds us that we never arrive at a place for the first time simply with some kind of pure receptivity. We always have songs in our heads.  And it is the songs we learnt in our childhoods perhaps that are the most inescapable soundtracks for scenarios we experience in later life.