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Susan Philipsz, ‘War Damaged Musical Instruments’, 2015. Installation view, Duveen Galleries, Tate Britain, London, 2015. Photo: Julian Abrams
Susan Philipsz

The Lower World

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Scottish artist Susan Philipsz (1965, Glasgow), known for her installations exploring the sculptural and emotional dimensions of sound, has been invited to create a new work for Luxembourg’s Aquatunnel, aunique landmark of the city’s urban heritage. The 900-metre-long tunnel runs beneath the Ville Haute, connecting the Pétrusse Valley to the Pfaffenthal Quarter. Featuring the artist’s voice and playing through twelve speakers placed in different parts of the tunnel, the sound installation The Lower World evokes both the sound of civil defence sirens and the song of the Sirens, who, in Greek mythology, lured sailors to their deaths. ‘The separated voices will be arranged in such a way that the siren sound will in turn be melodic, melancholic, dissonant and haunting as it passes through the space: a current of sound that will appear to rise and fall, coming in waves. With this work, I mean to fill the Aquatunnel with sounds, working with the specificities of the space and encouraging visitors, through multiple associations, to think about their surroundings,’ observes the artist.

Biography

Susan Philipsz (1965, Glasgow) has recently had solo exhibitions at fjk3 – Contemporary Art Space, Vienna (2024); Kunstmuseum Brandts, Odense (2023); SFMOMA, San Francisco (2022); Kunstmuseum, Bonn (2021); the Auckland Art Gallery (2020); Castello di Rivoli (2019) and Tate Modern, London (2018). Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at the West Bund Museum x Centre Pompidou, Shanghai; ZKM, Karlsruhe (2024); Castello di Rivoli; the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (2023); Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (2022) and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2020). Philipsz’s work is held in the collections of institutions such as the Baltimore Museum of Art; Beyeler Foundation, Basel; Hamburger Kunsthalle; Castello di Rivoli; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; SFMOMA, San Francisco and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Susan Philipsz lives and works in Berlin.

Credits

Location:
Aquatunnel, Luxembourg
Curator:

  • Bettina Steinbrügge

Susan Philipsz: The Lower World is presented in collaboration with LUGA – Luxembourg Urban Garden.

In partnership with LUGA – a city-wide, open-air exhibition of urban gardens – Mudam presents two major monographic projects in Luxembourg’s public spaces: the recreation of The Living Pyramid by Agnes Denes in Park Dräi Eechelen and a new soundinstallation by Susan Philipsz developed for the Aquatunnel, a landmark feature of the city’s World Heritage Site situated below the Ville Haute in Luxembourg.