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Location:M Leuven, Leopold Vanderkelenstraat 28 (ingang)
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Accessibility:This location is wheelchair accessible.
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Different opening hours:Closed at 18:00 and on Wednesdays.
Three age-old Scottish folk songs echo simultaneously, haunting M Leuven’s entrance hall.
Scottish artist and Turner Prize winner Susan Philipsz has been exploring the psychological and sculptural possibilities of sound for more than two decades. She often starts from existing music, such as folk songs or pop songs, which she herself sings a cappella and plays through loudspeakers in public spaces. Words and melodies take on new meanings, inspiring the listener to introspection. In One and the Same, Philipsz starts from a medieval Scottish folk song, handed down, in various versions. The song tells the tragic story of a woman who leaves her husband and son for a lover. When that lover turns out to be the devil, the woman is drowned at sea and sent to hell. Philipsz’s fragile and untrained voice can be heard in three different versions, played simultaneously, overlapping words and emphasising the song’s uncanny atmosphere.
Since 2009, Leuven has had a dynamic urban art museum with M in a new building designed by architect Stéphane Beel in which parts of old buildings were also integrated. Thus, the new museum complex includes the remnants of two former university colleges, St. Ivo College and Savoy College. The remnants of the Savoy College were previously converted into a neo-classical residence, which since 1920 housed the Municipal Museum Vander Kelen-Mertens, the predecessor of M. Also integrated into the M Leuven complex is the neo-classical portico of the Old University’s Faculty of Arts, built by Laurent-Benoît Dewez. Until the dissolution of the Old University in 1797, the basic education of Leuven students took place at that Faculty of Arts.
Text: Liesbet Nys (KU Leuven)
2008
➤ 3‑channel sound installation
➤ Duration: 4′ 26″
➤ Commission: 55th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 2008
