Would you consider a child, sitting at the dinner table, running her finger around the rim of a glass and creating noise, to be art? In Susan Philipsz's piece Seven Tears, she does.
Two new shows are coming to the Pulitzer Arts Foundation this fall. Opening on September 6, Zarina: Atlas of Her World and Susan Philipsz: Seven Tears will both be on view until February 2, 2020.
Courtesy of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation
Delhi I by Zarina
Zarina: Atlas of Her World, an exhibition by Zarina, an Indian-born artist who prefers to go by just her first name, will feature 40 pieces spanning from 1969 to 2017. Known as a printmaker, Zarina’s exhibit will include sculpture and collage as well as prints and will discuss a wide range of topics, including her experience being one of the approximately 15 million people displaced by the 1947 Partition that separated British India into India and Pakistan.
The exhibit will also feature works from other artists whose pieces inspired Zarina's work over the course of her career.
“Our goal is to highlight the various historical and global inspirations that she’s synthesized into her own practice,” said Tamara Schenkenberg, a curator at the Pulitzer. “Our exhibition is trying to add to that work that’s already been done by underscoring her engagements with various artistic traditions that she’s engaged with over her five-decades-long career.”
The themes embedded in Zarina’s art pieces, though spanning 50 years, can still be applied to the present day. “She is working a multitude of different media, she is addressing issues that are very pertinent to this moment, including notions of belonging and displacement,” said Schenkenberg.
Schenkenberg's favorite piece in the exhibit is one named The Dividing Line, a woodcut. “I think this work speaks so much because it really communicates clearly her skill as a printmaker, but also this really important moment of boundary making that changed her life profoundly," she says.
Courtesy of The Pulitzer Arts Foundation
Seven Tears by Susan Philipsz
The second exhibit opening this fall is Susan Philipsz: Seven Tears. Scottish-born Philipsz works mainly with sound as her medium.
Trained in sculpture, Philipsz switched to the medium of sound in the 1990s. “She was really interested in the way that sound can be used as a tool to define space, so she was thinking of it very sculpturely,” said Stephanie Weissberg, associate curator at the Pulitzer. “She was also interested in the psychological effects of sound, so the ways that it can trigger memory and emotion.”
The exhibit includes pieces spanning across time, from one of Philipsz’s first recorded pieces to the U.S. premiere of a new piece. Philipsz also worked closely with the Pulitzer to commission a new piece for the Pulitzer’s Water Court.
“The exhibition is titled Seven Tears, and I think that reference to water in relationship to tears is carried out through each of the works in the exhibition...engaging with ideas about morality, about loss, about mourning and human connection,” said Weissberg. “Susan Philipsz brings a very unique perspective to the Pulitzer and a very distinct way of animating the galleries and the buildings, which is very exciting.”
One of Weissberg's favorite pieces in the exhibit (she has a few) is its namesake, Seven Tears. The piece is inspired by John Bowland's 17th-century composition of the same name. Philipsz used wine glasses filled with different amounts of water and runs her fingers along the rims to create seven different pitches. These were all then recorded onto vinyl and all seven parts are played on a record player in the piece. “That’s a really unique piece in which visitors get to literally walk through the song and experience it differently depending on their physical location," Weissberg said.
