Susan Philipsz
26. März – 9. Mai 2004

In her audio and video installations, Susan Philipsz uses sound elements that are linked to a selected location or literary, musical or other historical sources. These productions are only completed in the subjective perception or memory of the listener. In her own words, it is "the emotive and psychological properties of sound" that Susan Philipsz explores in her work. Her first institutional solo exhibition in Germany at Kunstverein Arnsberg presents a selection of five of her works created between 2000 and 2004. In Company, 2000, the artist played the title melody of the film Don't Look Now by Nicholas Roeg on the piano and concentrated on the thematic motifs of the film. Susan Philipsz discovered the Irish folk song The Lass of Aughrim in John Huston's film The Dead, an adaptation of Joyce's novella, and developed an atmosphere of melancholy contemplation from the melody in The Dead, 2001. For Ziggy Stardust, 2002, the artist re-sang David Bowie's album and staged a subtle play on the definition of gender. Guadalupe, 2003, is set in the context of a search for the place of that name and uses the country song I' m so lonesome I could cry by Hank Williams as its basic melody. Recorded at a bus stop in San Antonio, the sad moment of the song is combined with the lively atmosphere of the place to create a sensual, exhilarating sound experience. Returning, 2004, shows the Karl Liebknecht monument in Berlin's Tiergarten. People walk past in seemingly endless succession, some pausing to read the inscription on the historical circumstances of his assassination. Through the distance of this film shot without sound, Susan Philipsz preserves an anonymity for the monument that places it among the unknown number of similar places of remembrance.

1965 born in Glasgow/GB, studied Fine Art Sculpture at the Duncan of Jordanstone College, Dundee and went on to gain an M.A. in Fine Art at the University of Ulster, Belfast, among others. 1999 Melbourne Biennial, 2000 Kunst-Werke Berlin, I Remember You, The Old Museum Arts Centre, Belfast (E), 2001 The Glen Dimplex Awards Exhibition, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Loop, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, 2002 The Music In Me, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, 2003 Art Pace Foundation Exhibition, San Antonio/USA; Triennial Exhibition, Tate Britain, London, 2004 Berlin North, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Beck's Futures Prize 2004, ICA Galleries, London, lives in Berlin