SUSAN PHILIPSZ: NIGHT AND FOG: KUNSTHAUS BREGENZ, AUSTRIA

Scottish born Susan Philipsz is one of today’s leading artists. Her work revolves around a melancholic existentialism and explorations of the human voice. The majority of her acoustic works are site specific. In 2010 she won the prestigious Turner Prize.

The point of departure for her current project for Kunsthaus Bregenz is Peter Zumthor’s architecture, which has been conceived as an illuminated structure between mountain and lake, creating an interplay between differing light conditions and the fog that is typical of the town. Fog as a metaphor was also the source of the title for the French documentary Night and Fog by Alain Resnais from 1955, which reconstructs the deportations to Auschwitz and Majdanek – addressing memory within these places themselves. Philipsz has deconstructed the soundtrack, composed by Hanns Eisler for the short film, into the individual voices of the instruments. Isolated and removed from the overall composition, their timbres fill the seemingly archaic spaces of the Kunsthaus with an almost sculptural presence.