Arte Povera

"It was in 1967 that Italian critic Germano Celant coined the term Arte Povera [poor art] to describe the work of a generation of young Italian artists. Emerging alongside such international movements as Land Art, Minimalism and Conceptual Art, Arte Povera used simple, 'poor' gestures and materials - twigs, metals, glass, fabric, stone, even live animals - to turn away from traditional 'high' art. They explored the relation between art and life as it is made manifest in natural processes and dynamics." -- Publisher's website

Susan Philipsz 'Lowlands'

You Are Not Alone presents ten sound installations by Scottish sculptor Susan Philipsz (born 1965), realised in Münster, Glasgow, Stockholm, Oxford, Berlin, Helsinki, Chicago, London, Edinburgh and Kassel. The publication gathers a range of research materials which informed the conception and shaping of each work in turn, together with the lyrics of the songs, photographs of each place and a critical reflection or testimony by about each project in turn

Susan Philipsz - Socialism in her Heart: A Melodic Reverie in the Key of G. The Seven Harmonies of the Timeline

This is an essay commissioned for a major monograph on the Turner Prize winning Scottish artist, 'Susan Philipsz - You Are Not Alone', published in 2014 by Artangel in London in partnership with Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Berlin, Edinburgh Arts Festival, Ludwig Forum, Aachen, MOCA, Chicago, Modern Art, Oxford, Pro-Arte, Helsinki, and Konig Publishers. The essay is a reflection on the work 'Timeline' Philipsz produced for the Edinburgh International Art Festival in 2012. I have known Susan Philipsz for 20 years and I decided I wanted to interview her for my Artist to Artist interview strand of the AHRC funded project,' The Glasgow Miracle, Materials for Alternative Histories' on which i am the co-investigator. Although she has not lived in Scotland for a long time she is very much a Glaswegian Artist and her work fits very well in to the contextual model taught in the Environmental Art department where I work at GSA(though she studied at Dundee). I wanted to ask Susan about her views on the rise of the art scene in Glasgow as related to her own practice. I duly conducted this interview in the archive space at Transmission Gallery when she was visiting the city at the end of September 2012 I was trying to secure a date for the interview in the summer of 2012 and I met her in Edinburgh where she was working on a major commission for the Art festival. This proved fortuitous as I had seen the work and after we filmed the interview she asked me if I would consider writing an essay on the work. The text itself is a poetic reflection of the project which approaches possible meanings or readings of the work 'Timeline' from 7 different angles which are arranged around the 7 elements of the major harmonic scale, C, D, E etc.. The complex history and geography of the context are explored along with politics and music but above all the text seeks to examine the relationship with audience Philipsz has built up over the years, how the openness and ambiguity of the practice proposes a unique engagement with a 'public' which has seen Philipsz become one of the pre-eminent artists of her generation in this area of relational or socially engaged practice

The Producers : Contemporary Curators in Conversation (4)

Transcripts of three public discussions address the growth of curatorship as a profession and a practice that has recently engaged more creatively with art. Christov-Bakargiev and Gillick describe their practices, questioning the place of criticality in curatorship and its relation to art criticism; Bauer and Nash discuss their previous work and their involvement with documenta 11; Millar poetically delineates openness and closure in art, while Gleadowe provides more specific details about the curating course at the Royal College. Biographical notes. 2 bibl. ref