Susan Philipsz: East by West: Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
Susan Philipsz presents East by West, a new commission for the Endless Exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof. Upon entering the museum garden, visitors hear drawn-out tones of varying pitch emanating from the trees on either side of the central pathway. They swell, overlap, and fade away again. The starting point of this site-specific sound installation is the wind—a natural force that is invisible, but tangible and audible. The sounds were created using conch shells. Used as instruments, these objects have a long tradition as signal tools or in ritual acts and were already considered a symbol of the wind in ancient times. At the same time, their origins in the Pacific and Atlantic allude to Hamburger Bahnhof's orientation at the intersection of East and West.
Philipsz’s work is a 4-channel sound installation, where visitors hear melodies from loudspeakers located in two poplars and two elms located on either side of the sidewalk. Philipsz recorded four shells from the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific, far west and east of Berlin. Their sound refers to the cardinal direction of their origin and evokes a wind that knows no boundaries. Thus, the work in the museum garden also references the geographical and historical east-west orientation of the Hamburger Bahnhof where, until 1990, the Berlin Wall stood directly next to the building.
Born in 1965 in Glasgow, Philipsz currently resides in Berlin, where she works with the psychological and sculptural possibilities of sound. She received the Turner Prize in 2010 and was awarded an OBE in 2014 for services to British art.
Since the mid-1990s, Philipsz’s sound installations have been exhibited at many prestigious institutions and public venues around the world. She has presented solo exhibitions at fjk3–Contemporary Art Space in Vienna (2024), Kunst Museum Brandts (2023), ARoS, Aarhaus in Denmark (2023), Kunstmuseum Bonn (2021), Castello di Rivoli in Italy (2019), Tate Modern (2018) and Tate Britain (2015) in London, Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm (2017), Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria (2016), Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin (2014), the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh (2013), K21 Standehaus Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Dusseldorf, Germany (2013), Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2011), Aspen Art Museum in Colorado (2010-11), Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State in Columbus, OH (2009-10), Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany (2009), Institute of Contemporary Art in London (2008), among others. Installations by Philipsz were included in Skulptur Projekte Muenster in 2007, the 55th Carnegie International in 2008 and the National Gallery of Victoria Triennial in 2020.
The artist’s major commissions include Lowlands, her Turner Prize-winning work for Glasgow International in 2010, SURROUND ME: A Song Cycle for the City of London, a public project organized by Artangel in London (2010-11); Study for Strings for dOCUMENTA 13 (2012), subsequently shown at MoMA in New York (2013) and performed live by the St. Louis Symphony at the Pulitzer Art Foundation (2020); Day is Done, a permanent installation organized by the Trust for Governors Island in New York (2014); New Canaan, a project for the Grace Farms Foundation (2015); Prelude in the Form of a Passacaglia at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2020), Rosa at KW in Berlin (2021), The Wind Rose at Boca Raton Museum of Art in Florida (2021), We'll All Go Together at Powder Mountain, Utah (2023), and As Many As Will, a permanent installationon view now at the Goodwood Art Foundation, Chichester, United Kingdom (2025).
Philipsz’s work can be found in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Castello di Rivoli in Italy, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, SFMOMA in San Francisco, The Tate in London, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
Image: Susan Philipsz, East by West, 2025; Photo: © Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Jacopo La Forgia © Susan Philipsz
