06.02.2009 – 02.03.2009
curator: Daniel Muzyczuk
cooperation: Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea

The Long Gone project consists of two different installations that relate to each other. The two songs sung a capella by the artist tend to evoke the spectre of the past. Philipsz’s works are intimate laments for someone that has gone, filled with tenderness and nostalgia.

The recordings, emited both in the space outside and inside the CoCA building, are deliberately ambiguous, oscillating between a personal confession and a public statement. The sound intervention creates a new, melancholic context of the space. The unique requiem for the late heroes conveys a sense of the past in the present. The public space is always historical – Philipsz’s ambigous game with the listener demonstrates the new contexts behind the places we pass every day and don’t even notice anymore. The spectres cross the border between the material and the spiritual, between the active and the passive, but also between the private and the public.

I’m interested in the spatial values of sound and how sound can define architecture. I’m also interested in the emotive and psychological effects of song and how it can be a trigger for memory, heightening ones own sense of self while making you aware of your surroundings.

Susan Philipsz

Susan Philipsz was born in 1965 in Glasgow, Scotland and lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She has exhibited in many international contexts, including at Manifesta 3, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2000); the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2001); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France (2002); Kunstverein Arnsberg, Germany (2004); Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany (2004); Westfalischer Kunstverein, Munster, Germany (2004); and the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England (2004). This year Philipsz has been commissioned to create public works for Dundee Contemporary Fine Arts, Scotland; Kolnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany; and in Nicosia, Cyprus.