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

Abstract

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